Five consecutive months of national dwelling price decline: CoreLogic

The national dwelling values slipped by 0.1 percent in February, taking housing values 0.8 percent lower since peaking in September last year, according to today's CoreLogic Home Value Index results.

Dwelling values edged lower across most capital cities over the month, with broad based falls weighing down dwelling values nationally for the fifth consecutive month. 

The 0.1% decline in national dwelling values in February 2018 was more moderate than the 0.3% declines recorded over each of the previous two months, however, it marked the first time national values had fallen for five consecutive months since March 2016.

Over the 12 months to February 2018, national dwelling values increased by 2.2 percent, which is their slowest annual rate of growth since August 2016.

The gap between annual growth rates across the combined capital cities (2.0%) and the combined regional markets (2.8%) has continued to widen over the past month as regional areas outperform the capitals.

There continues to be a divergence between capital city and regional markets, with the combined capital city index falling by -0.3% over the month, compared to a 0.4% increase in combined regional values.

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Over the month values fell across every capital city except Hobart, which increased by 0.7 percent, and Adelaide which remained steady.

The biggest drop was in Darwin which decline 0.9 percent, while Sydney dropped 0.6 percent.

Canberra's dwelling prices went down by 0.3 percent, Perth 0.2 percent and Brisbane and Melbourne 0.1 percent.

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The rate of decline eased over the second half of February although values have fallen in most capital cities during February, the CoreLogic daily index indicates that the rate of decline eased late in the month, in line with improving auction clearance rates. Sydney, Melbourne and Perth all recorded more moderate falls in values throughout February than they did in January.

CoreLogic head of research, Tim Lawless, said, “The overall softening in the market becomes more evident when looking at the change in values over the past three months.”

Over the three months to February 2018, Adelaide (0.1%) and Hobart (3.2%) were the only capital cities in which values rose. Sydney, which has been the strongest market for value growth over recent years, saw the largest fall in values over the three month period, down -2.4%. Sydney was followed by Darwin, which has been persistently weak over recent years, and saw values fall by a further -2.0% over the quarter.

Regional markets outperforming the capitals While most individual capital cities recorded declines in values over the past three months, in the regional areas of the country the results were very different; regional dwelling values increased by 0.9% over the three months and values were higher in the regional areas of all states except for Western Australia.