National property listings increased in May: SQM's Louis Christopher

EXPERT OBSERVATION

SQM Research calculate national residential listings increased by 4.0% in May 2019 to 345,516 from 332,236 in April 2019.

A year-on-year comparison shows listings up by 6.2%.

All states experienced an increase in property sales listings over the month, with Hobart experiencing the highest increase at 7.1%, followed by Adelaide at 6.4% and Canberra 5.6%.  

Perth recorded the lowest increase at 3.9% with Darwin not far behind at 4.0%.

Darwin was the only state to record a year-on-year decline of 1.5%.

The modest monthly increases does not compare to the huge year-on-year increases of 25.0% in Canberra, 21.1% in Melbourne and 15.5% in Hobart.

Year-on-year Sydney managed a 0.7% increase in listings whilst Perth increased from 1.9% to 3.9%.

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Source: SQM Research

We were expecting a rise in listings for the month of May given the low numbers recorded in April which was affected by the Federal Election.

May’s counts suggest listings remained elevated for most capital cities, suggesting the month remained largely a buyers’ market.

This view is confirmed by the simultaneous fall in asking prices over the same month.

Asking Prices

Capital City house asking prices decreased marginally by 0.6% and 0.2% for units, for the month to 28 May 2019. 

Unit asking prices are now $558,700 and houses $903,700. Compared to a year ago, the capital city asking prices posted larger declines of 7.4% for houses and 3.7% for units.

Adelaide was the only capital city to record increases over the month in both houses and units at 0.2% and 0.4%respectively.

Sydney continues its decline in house prices with a 0.8% decrease and 0.5% for units over the month.

A house in Sydney is now $1,219,700 and a unit is $683,000. Sydney’s 12 month decline is now 10.5% for houses and 6.0% for units.

Melbourne’s house and unit prices also continued to decline over the month at 0.5% and 0.6% respectively.

Darwin, Hobart and Brisbane’s house prices increased marginally over the month at 1.3%, 0.4% and 0.2% respectively.

However, unit prices declined in Darwin by 1.5%, by 1.0% in Hobart and 0.2% in Brisbane over the month.

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Louis Christopher is the managing director at SQM Research.