Auction settlement rates in Canberra have fallen to their lowest level since 2020 and this, coupled with stagnant housing price growth, has led to the ACT predicting a return to the buyer market.
Key points:
- The number of new property listings in Canberra fell 4.8 percent in June compared to May
- CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless says the market is “flattening”
- He predicts that house prices will start to fall in the coming months
CoreLogic data shows that Canberra’s preliminary auction settlement rate fell to 51.2% during the week ending July 3, its lowest point since April 2020.
CoreLogic’s head of research, Tim Lawless, said he expected settlement rates to continue to fall.
“This is the third week in the last four weeks that settlement rates have been below the 60 per cent mark, and just back in April earlier this year, we were seeing settlement rates constantly about 70 percent, ”he said.
“So it’s pretty clear that we’re seeing a lot of strength coming out of the Canberra auction market which is also reflected in lower housing value growth.”
The Canberra real estate market rose during the pandemic, but Lawless said there were indications it was finally cooling.
“The authorization rate is dropping to the low 50 per cent range, even ending below 50 per cent as more results pass,” he said.
“It does suggest that the Canberra housing market is moving back into a buyer’s market rather than a sellers’ market, which is where the last two years have gone.”
The number of new property listings in Canberra fell 4.8% in June compared to May, according to SQM Research.
It also fell 14.9% from the June 2021 statistics.
Lawless said figures from the past two months showed that ACT property prices were “flattening.”
“Essentially, this is pretty much a flat market now, but if you look at the growth trend rate that has been declining since about August last year,” he said.
“It’s likely to continue moving south, probably starting to see a more consistent month-over-month drop in home values as the market approaches a drop.”
He said buyers could expect to start getting “more and more leverage at the negotiating table” as the year progressed.
“We can see it in more listings that are active in the market and the fact that houses take longer to sell and buyers also start trading a lot more,” he said.
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Posted 4 hours, 4 hours ago, Monday, July 4, 2022 at 10:43 PM, updated 1 hour, 1 hours ago, Tuesday, July 5, 2022 at 1:21 AM