Australia Ranks in Top 20 for House Price Growth

Australia has ranked 19th across 56 countries after recording a 6.1 per cent rise in house prices over the year to June.

The Knight Frank global house price index result comes as the nation’s home values recorded a 0.4 per cent fall in August.

The index, which tracks the movement in residential prices spanning more than 50 countries across the globe, found that Australia has risen 37 places up the rankings from one year ago when it came in last place—ranking at 56.

The metrics show Australia has recorded 6.1 per cent growth in house prices over the 12 months to 30 June 2020.

Knight Frank’s head of residential Shayne Harris said Australia’s housing market has seen continued demand, albeit fewer transactions throughout the pandemic.

“In Sydney, the market continues to be underpinned by a severe shortage of stock for sale by both auction and private treaty,” he said.

“While in the past eight weeks the difficulties around obtaining finance have seen the number of registered bidders thin out at auction, the clearance rate remains stable, as do prices across the inner and middle rings of metropolitan Sydney.”

Melbourne’s market conditions have been in steady decline for the past four months, Harris said.

“The city’s second lockdown, combined with reliance on overseas immigration and education to support the market, could see these conditions continue beyond the other capital cities, who are ahead of the curve in relation to recovery”.

Harris added that Brisbane’s market could emerge in a very strong position for 2021.

“Coming off an extended period of low price growth, Brisbane’s affordability is the best capital city, side-by-side with Perth, in the short-to-medium term,” Harris said.

Knight Frank’s Australian head of residential research Michelle Ciesielski said the global data is backward-looking, covering the year through to June 30, when Covid-19 had hit most global markets.

New Zealand was the best-performing country in the Asia Pacific region, recording 9.1 per cent growth the past year and ranking at 11.

The annual rankings were topped by Turkey, followed by Luxembourg, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.

In its latest global economic outlook, released Monday, Fitch Ratings predicted global GDP would fall by 4.4 per cent in 2020, a modest upward revision from the 4.6 per cent expected in the June outlook.

The global rating agency’s economics team, led by chief economist Brian Coulton, said “the recovery in economic activity after the unprecedented severe coronavirus-related recession” in March and April has been swifter than expected, “but we expect the pace of expansion to moderate soon”.