Source: Australian Property Journal
NATIONAL listings were at their lowest level more than 10 years in August, with locked down cities Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra leading the fall.
According to the latest data from SQM Research, national listings over August fell by 9.6% to 215,911, compared to 238,834 in July. Reflecting the lowest volume of listings since SQM began recording in January 2010.
National listings were also down 26.3% compared to this time 12 months ago, with Sydney, Hobart, Adelaide, Canberra and Brisbane recording the most significant drops.
Canberra saw the greatest change for both the month and the year, significantly ahead of the pack with a 18.4% decline over August and a 36.5% decline compared to last year, with just 2,478 properties listed.
Sydney reported 22,387 listings, a monthly decline of 11.9% and a yearly fall of 27.5%, while Melbourne has 32,445 listings reflecting a 13.1% monthly decline and yearly decline of 10.6%.
In Brisbane there were 20,804 total listings for August, a monthly decline of 10.3% and a yearly fall of 28.2%, with Perth recording a monthly decline of 6.5% and yearly drop of 6.2% for a total of 20,706 listings.
Nationally, new listings were also on the decline over August, falling 7.8%, while compared to 12 months ago there was an increase of 8.0%.
“Listing counts over August were predominantly impacted by lockdowns,” said Louis Christopher, managing director of SQM Research.
Over August, Sydney saw a monthly decline of 10.7%, Melbourne of 31.2%, Brisbane of 9.5%, Canberra of 21.2%.
Older listings also had another monthly fall, indicating strong absorption rates across the country. Going forward we are cautious for the market given the likely economic damage as a result of these latest city wide closures,” said Christopher.
Older stock, listings available for more than 180 days, fell nationally by 10.3% for the month and 53.2% for the year, with Melbourne the only city seeing a monthly increase of 2.6%.
Meanwhile Sydney recorded a decline in old listings of 4.1%, Brisbane of 10.9%, Perth of 8.7%, Adelaide of 10.3%, Canberra of 18.0%.
Nationally, asking prices for houses and units saw increases of a respective 1.5% to $695,500 and 1.7% to $433,000, while capital city average increased by 1.7% for houses to $1,101,000 for houses and 2.9% to $589,100 for units.
Sydney drove this average price up despite seeing a 0.4% drop over the month for houses to $1,578,600, with units increasing 4.2% to $714,200.
Melbourne saw marginal increases over the month, with a 0.2% rise for house to $1,087,700 and 0.5% for units to $566,600.
Asking prices for houses in Brisbane increased over the month by 2.3% to $721,200, while units fell by 0.4% to $393,300.
While in Adelaide house asking prices grew by 2.8% to $558,000 with unit asking prices dropping by 0.9% to $327,100.
In Canberra asking prices for houses increased by 1.0% to $834,5000 with units increasing by 2.9% to $491,500.
