According to a recent report released by RP Data, regional areas are under the spotlight as affordable alternatives to the hotspots of Melbourne and Sydney.
As capital city property markets continue to remain hot, many buyers are looking to Australia's regional areas - according to CoreLogic Regional Report for the March 2016 quarter.
House values in the Illawarra region of New South Wales are increasing by 15.8 per cent and unit values increasing by 13.2 per cent.
CoreLogic research analyst Cameron Kusher said, “The Illawarra region has been a stand out performer in the past year. As you would expect, this market been driven largely by a surge in Sydney property prices as people find themselves priced out of the capital city housing market. The Illawarra region offers not just an affordable alternative for owner occupiers; it’s also attracting buyers keen to secure holiday homes.”
“With mortgage rates at their lowest levels in 53 years and tipped to drop even further, we’re likely to see housing purchases popular across larger coastal regional markets throughout 2016.”
Thee Gold Coast area of Queensland recorded the largest increase in dwelling sales over the year to February 2016, up 7.3 per cent to 19,516 sales, followed by Wide Bay, which saw dwelling sales increase by 4.4 per cent to 5,471.
For regional Victoria, dwelling sales increased across Geelong, up 2.0 per cent to 6,117, while across the Latrobe-Gippsland region, sales volumes increased by 7.4 per cent. Both regions saw home values rise, with houses and units across Geelong rising by 5.4 per cent and 2.8 per cent respectively, compared to Latrobe-Gippsland, where house values were up 3.0 per cent and unit values increased by 2.1 per cent over the year to March 2016.
Detached house values remained relatively unchanged in Bunbury in Western Australia and recorded a rise of just 0.3 per cent. Simultaneously, unit values fell by -3.7 per cent over the year to March 2016 while sales volumes were down -9.2 per cent for houses and -24.1 per cent across the smaller unit market, indicating current transaction levels are -4.2 per cent below the five year average for the region.
Excerpts taken from an article published by Cameron Kusher from corelogic.com.au.
25 May 2016
