Residential listings trending lower than this time last year: CoreLogic
GUEST OBSERVATION
Each week, CoreLogic RP Data monitors residential properties coming to the market for sale through what is commonly known as ‘listing activity’.
Listings are tracked across three different categories; houses, units and vacant land. Listing counts provide a comprehensive look at stock currently available for sale at a national level and across each state and territory. CoreLogic RP Data also tracks listing volumes across the combined capital cities as well as in each individual Australian capital city.
One of the key benefits of this data set is that it can be used to monitor stock levels over time. The listings volumes are a key indicator of how the property market is tracking at any given time. Paired with the number of transactions, listings volumes help to provide a good indication of how balanced a market is, and what proportion of stock is available for sale or is being turned over.
Similarly, listings can be paired with sales volumes to help us work out the effective supply across the market and how many months of stock are available at any one time.
Over the four weeks ending 25 January 2015 there were 29,107 new listings added to the market and the total number of properties available for sale was 229,453.
While not surprising, off the back of the end of year slow down, new listings are much lower than they were three months ago when over the four weeks ending 21 September 2014, 42,650 new listings were added to the market nationally.
In comparison to the same time last year, we can see that new listings coming onto the market across Australia are currently -8.3% lower, however, total stock levels are just -2.2% lower.
Similarly across the capital city markets, the total number of new listings that were added to the market over the four weeks ending 25 January 2015 (16,352) were -6.6% lower this year, compared to last year and total listings (89,521) are -4.1% lower.
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What is interesting is that across the combined capital cities for the majority of 2014, total listings on a rolling four week basis remained lower than at the same time in 2013. However, new listings numbers were higher in comparison to the previous year for much of the first half of the year and a similar trend was seen in October and November.
The fact that new listings were higher, but total listings were lower suggests that stock was being absorbed faster than it was in 2013. This can be further quantified by looking at sales volumes over the start of 2014.
Between January and May, the total number of houses and units sold was higher on a month-by-month basis than the previous year, while sales volumes began to ease slightly towards the end of the year.
Furthermore, the average time on market trended lower in 2014 further highlighting a more rapid rate of sale.
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As shown in the above graphs, we know from previous years that the number of homes available for sale will start to ramp up over the next few weeks and we will also see more activity begin to resume across the auction market which over the past six weeks has been relatively quiet.
Similarly, we have also seen the CoreLogic RP Data Listings Index pick up after the seasonal slowdown, with the index up 31.6% over the week ending 25 January 2015.
This Index is a lead indicator for residential dwellings being prepared for sale, so the rise in the Index is clearly signifying the conclusion of the quiet end of year period.
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Shana Miller is a research analyst at CoreLogic RP Data.