Listings slow down in the lead up to the Easter long weekend: Shana Miller

GUEST OBSERVATION

Each year, in the weeks leading up to the Easter long weekend, the number of new listings coming onto the market often slows down.

This year has been no exception, with the number of residential properties being added to the market beginning to fall on a week by week basis.

Across the combined capital cities, the number of new listings coming onto the market over the four weeks ending 22 March was -1.6% lower when compared to the previous rolling four week period and over the week ending 29 March, new listings were a further -4.0% lower.

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There were 27,238 new capital city properties advertised for sale over the four weeks ending 29 March 2015, -13.3% lower than at the same time last year, however overall stock levels (103,022) across the combined capital cities are just -3.9% lower than they were at the same time last year.

Perth (20,409 compared to 17,406), Darwin (1,452 compared to 1,091) and Canberra (2,344 compared to 1,911) are all recording higher total stock levels than they were at the same time last year, however the number of new listings for each market is lagging behind when compared to the same four week period one year ago which, as mentioned previously, is likely to be attributed to the seasonal slow-down leading up to the Easter long weekend.

Across Sydney, the total number of listings over the most recent four week period was recorded at 19,047, down -16.2% when compared to the 22,723 properties available for sale at the same time last year and new listings being added to the Sydney market are currently -20.9% lower than at the same time last year. In Melbourne, total listings are -10.4% lower, -6.0% lower in Hobart, -4.2% lower in Adelaide, while total listings are just -1.5% lower than over the same four week period last year in Brisbane.

One interesting thing to take note of is that currently the number of total listings across Perth is higher than the number of listings that CoreLogic RP Data is tracking across the Sydney market. This has generally been the trend since the beginning of the year and it is the first time in the history of tracking listings (since 2007) that Perth has had a higher number of properties listed for sale than Sydney.

This indicates that stock turnover across Sydney is outpacing the number of new homes coming to the market and can likely be attributed to the strong performance across the residential housing market over the past year. Similarly, Perth’s residential market has shown a slow-down in transactions and value growth since the end of 2013 resulting in less of the listings stock being absorbed.

On a national level, over the 28 days ending 22 March 2015, there were 45,039 new residential properties advertised for sale, bringing the total number of houses, units and vacant land properties available for sale across Australia up to 246,708.

 Shana Miller is a research analyst at CoreLogic RP Data.