Bureau says price growth is “consistent with a range of housing market indicators”
Residential property prices in Australia’s capital cities experienced strong growth at the end of last year, according to recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
ABS data revealed that residential property prices rose 3.0% in the December 2020 quarter from the last quarter – the strongest quarterly growth since the December quarter of 2019.
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According to ABS, the price growth was led by Sydney (up 3.0%) and Melbourne (up 3.4%), followed by Canberra (up 3.4%), Hobart (up 3.1%), Perth (up 2.9%), Brisbane (up 2.7%), Adelaide (up 2.6%), and Darwin (up 2.2%).
Meanwhile, on an annual basis, residential property prices in capital cities rose 3.6% in the December 2020 quarter from the same period in 2019, with Hobart seeing the biggest rise in prices (up 6.4%), followed by Canberra (up 5.2%), and Perth (up 4.2%).
Michelle Marquardt, head of prices statistics at ABS, said that the growth in property prices “is consistent with a range of housing market indicators.”
“New lending commitments to households, auction clearance rates, and days-on-market all improved during the December quarter,” said Marquardt.
ABS data also showed the total value of Australia’s 10.6 million residential dwellings rose by $257.9 billion to $7,724.4 billion in the December quarter of 2020 – the strongest rise since the December quarter of 2016.
Consequently, ABS revealed the new mean price of residential dwellings in Australia to be $728,500.
