Learn about the exclusive insights and expert predictions of the Australian property market based on its performance throughout May 2022.
Price performance across Australian housing markets
Despite the significant growth over the last two years, Australian property markets are now experiencing a time of slow price growth. This is even applicable to previously high performing markets. Property experts like Michael Yardney have mentioned that the values to housing will still increase throughout 2022. Just not to the levels they recently have.
Different markets will always be expected to perform better than others, given different periods of times. Reiterating the slow growth in April (compared to the last two years), Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Adelaide, and Darwin experienced dwelling price growth averaging between 0.2 to 0.5 per cent. The other major markets remained stagnant or had a small drop.
In his Property Update report, Yardney believes there are three contributing factors to the slowing down of price growth. They are:
Affordability constraints for buying a house
Rising inflation and mortgage rates are proving to challenge the affordability of Australians looking at buying a house. It’s believed that people who missed the boat to enter the property market in the last two years could struggle to do so now.
Fewer people are expected to look at buying a house.
There’s expected to be fewer buyers and sellers in the Australian housing market.
Furthermore, in a Prop Track report by realestate.com.au, it was determined that in April the number of buyers per listing fell by 0.9% in Sydney. Moreover, the number of new listings within this market decreased by 26.2%.
The table below demonstrates the change in potential buyers per listings and the number of property listings throughout Australian housing markets.
The fear of missing out regarding buying a house is phasing out.
Other trends in Australian property markets
Queensland continues to boast lifestyle benefits
The economic outlook for Queensland property markets remains positive and is expected to do so throughout 2022 and beyond. Queensland offers lifestyle benefits, employment opportunities, and other long-term benefits relating to infrastructure.
Additionally, those looking at buying a house in the Sunshine State are provided with another major advantage. That being, houses are more affordable to buy than in New South Wales or Victoria.
Labour to introduce new housing incentives
Following the ALP’s victory with winning the Federal Election in May, new housing measures are expected to roll out in coming months. The biggest initiatives that the political party are set to offer, include:
Help to Buy Scheme
Labour is set to offer what’s described as a “shared equity program.” Essentially, eligible people will have the Government finance up to 40% of the purchase price of a new home (and 30% if the property is established). Labour will allocate 10,000 spots each year. To learn more about this scheme, check out this link.
Other initiatives
As more information comes to light in the following months, it’s expected that the ALP will further assist Regional First Home Buyers. The party will fund 15% of the deposit needed for first home buyers to purchase in regional locations.
Additionally, the ALP have also stated they’re dedicated to offer more affordable housing. Under what they refer to as The Housing Australia Future Fund, Labour have promised to dedicated $10 billion to constructing “30,000 new social and affordable housing properties in its first five years.”
Mortgage rate predictions
At the beginning of May, the RBA increased the cash rate for the first time in 18 months. Although they were predicted to do so sooner, the RBA decided to increase it’s rate from 0.10 to 0.35 per cent.
While analysts believe that it will grow by 2.5% by December this year, Commonwealth Bank economists don’t believe so. In fact, the major lender has stated that they predict the cash rate to reach 1.3% by the end of the year.
Depending on what the RBA decides to do with the cash rate, is and will continue to influence how lenders determine their mortgage rates. In recent months we’ve seen many lenders adjust their fixed mortgage rates and change their serviceability criteria to accommodate for rate rises.
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