Australia’s property slump has reached the one-year mark as the nation’s two major cities have become the biggest drag.
National home values dropped 0.5 percent last month, weighed by declines in Sydney and Melbourne, CoreLogic Inc data showed yesterday.
Prices in the two east coast cities, which make up more than half of the national value of housing, have fallen 6.1 percent and 3.4 percent respectively from a year earlier.
Photo: Reuters
“Sydney and Melbourne are now the primary drag on the national housing market performance,” taking over from regions that were affected by the mining downturn, CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless said.
Values have fallen greatest among the most expensive properties as lenders curb their appetite for high debt-to-income ratio lending, he said.
Home values in Australia have fallen for 12 straight months, down 2.7 percent from the peak in September last year as tougher credit rules, increased supply and subdued wage growth combined to put an end to Australia’s housing boom.
Still, that is “hardly a crash,” as the decline is slower than the last decline between June 2010 and February 2012, CoreLogic said.
Then, national home values fell by 3 percent in the first 12 months, declining 6.5 percent from peak to trough.
As for Sydney and Melbourne, values remain more than 40 percent higher in the two markets than they were five years ago as the cities benefit from a substantial lift in wealth from the housing boom, Lawless said.
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