Home values cool over winter

HOBART has taken back the title of Australia’s most affordable capital city, new data shows.

After breaking a 15-year drought last month by jumping over Darwin’s median dwelling price, Hobart’s July result of $435,833 was $2330 more affordable than Adelaide and $3763 behind Darwin.

From an annual growth perspective, Hobart is still Australia’s strongest performing capital city with its median price growing by 11.5 per cent, CoreLogic’s July Home Value Index shows.

It was the only capital with double-digit growth. The next best annual result was Canberra at 2.4 per cent.

Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Darwin posted negative growth figures between -6.2 per cent and -0.5 per cent.

Figures released yesterday show July was the 12th month in a row Hobart led the nation with the strongest annual growth figures.

On a monthly basis, Hobart’s median price sat around 1 per cent to 1.5 per cent growth in February, March and April before weakening more recently. May’s median change was 0.8 per cent, June’s 0.3 per cent and July was flat at 0 per cent.

CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless said Hobart’s an- nual capital gains figures had held in the double-digit territory since January 2017.

However, he said Hobart was starting to slow down.

“Dwelling values were steady over the month and the annual rate of growth slowed to 11.5 per cent, which is still strong, but the slowest annual growth rate since February 2017,” Mr Lawless said.

Master Builders Australia reported this week the value of new residential construciton activity was expected to grow by almost 20 per cent before spiking at the end of this financial year.

Harcourts Signature director Candice Gottschalk said while the real estate sales market was still performing strongly, the “urgency” to buy and sell that was prevalent throughout Hobart over the first half of 2018 and late 2017 had “somewhat declined”.

“This can be attributed to a typically quieter time of year combined with less interstate inquiries and interest,” Ms Gottschalk said.

“However, property demand in sought-after areas such as Bellerive or Acton Park is still exceptionally high with a huge number of buyers wanting to enter these markets.”

Howrah homeowners Melita and Lyndon Beard say their recent experience of open homes in the Hobart market was that there was a rush to get offers in on the spot.

“In the price bracket we were looking at, it’s highly competitive,” Mrs Beard said.

“You would see people lining up to fill in a contract.”

When selling their family home, about 50 people came to the open home and the couple was “talking offers within a fortnight”.

The house was sold about five weeks after hitting the market.

Mr Beard said from what he had experienced and heard, plenty of interstate investors were still house hunting in Hobart.

He said before deciding to build their next home, they put in an offer on a Howrah house up against a number of other offers.

“Four were around the price that we offered, but a buyer from Canberra offered $60,000 more,” he said.

“And they had only seen it on the internet ... that makes it pretty hard to compete.”