If you hold a long-term dream of living in the country or owning a holiday home, the latest price trends in regional Australia are working in your favour.
Whether you’re looking for a long-term investment or a place to relax, the red-hot prices commanded by regional centres and towns across Australia are coming off the boil.
Or as leading researcher CoreLogic tells it, “the heat is leaving regional hotspots”.
In its regional market update, CoreLogic found a 6% drop in prices across 25 regional centres. No market escaped a quarterly decline in values. CoreLogic analysed 87.8% of all sales results to identify this trend.
Markets on the edge of Sydney and southern Queensland suffered the most while South Australia’s southeast region smashed it out of the park with value growth still at stellar levels of 20%-plus.
Below, we have outlined some of the most interesting results so you can gauge a broader perspective of the Australian market rather than rely only on city-based results.
As a potential buyer, you must thoroughly investigate price trends in your target areas. Australia has thousands of small markets, even in country areas. Chatting with a trusted local agent to discover what’s happening is always a great idea.
Here are the highlights of the regional report:
- Some of the biggest losers in CoreLogic’s Regional Market Update are Richmond-Tweed (-11.7%), Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven (-7.1%), Sunshine Coast (-7.1%), Gold Coast (-6.4%), Illawarra (-6.1%) and Newcastle and Lake Macquarie (-6%).
- More than in any other part of the country, sales volumes were down in regional NSW. Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven (both -27.5%) suffered the most. They also had the highest vendor discounting.
- Staying in NSW, properties in New England clocked up the longest time on market at 43 days.
- Townville had the highest growth in sales volumes (21.6%), while Toowoomba had the shortest days on market (13).
- Victoria’s Latrobe Gippsland region and NSW’s Central West recorded the lowest vendor discounting rate (-2.7%).
- CoreLogic described the spring selling period as “lacklustre” and predicted the future of regional markets would be “skewed to the negative” while interest rates continued to rise.
- Richmond-Tweed recorded the most substantial decline in house values. During the pandemic, values rocketed 50%-plus, taking the median house value to more than $1 million. The fall has been steep, with values sliding 16 points following floods and interest rate rises.