Residential property listings fell in June: SQM Research

National residential property listings surprisingly decreased in June, by one percent, figures released by SQM Research have showed.

Listing were down from 304,137 in May 2020 to 301,140 in June.

Listing were down 7.5 per cent compared to this time last year.

Most capital cities experienced decreases in property listings over the month except for Melbourne and Perth, whilst Brisbane remained steady.

The largest listings decrease was in Hobart at 7.5% followed by Canberra by 5.7% and Darwin 5.3%. Sydney’s listings only decreased by 1.6%.

Melbourne and Perth were the only capital cities to record increases in listings, 2.7% and 0.4% respectively.

Year-on-year listings show more significant declines for nearly all capital cities with Darwin recording a high 22.2% decline, followed by Perth with a 15.4% decline. Melbourne however bucked the trend and increased listings by 10.2% this time last year.

Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research said, “It is not unusual for listings to decrease in June as it is the start of the colder winter months."

There was a solid increase in new listings. Indeed, we have more new listings on the market compared to this time last year."

"Listings that were coming up to 90 days dropped the most, indicating that some of the older stock had either been withdrawn or was selling during June."

"Overall, these numbers on their own would indicate fairly normal activity in the housing market. Of course, we know that conditions are far from normal. And this is illustrated in the fall in vendor asking prices for the month.”

Asking Prices

Capital City average asking prices decreased by 0.8% for houses and 0.4% for units, over the month to 30thJune 2020. Unit asking prices are now at $571,000 and houses $989,100.

Compared to a year ago, the capital city asking prices posted increases of 8.8% for houses and 1.3% increase for units.

Over the month, most capital cities recorded marginal asking price increases however Sydney’s asking prices continue to decline to now record declines of 0.9% for houses and 1.3% for units. Melbourne recorded a 1.5% decrease in house prices but units increased by 0.7%

Strongest monthly growth was seen in Hobart’s unit prices with a 3.1% increase, followed by Perth’s house prices which had a 1.3% price increase.

Year on year, Darwin experienced declines in house and unit prices, 0.6% and 2.8% respectively, and Perth experienced declines in unit prices only of 1.3%. Sydney recorded an 11.5% increase in house price growth and a small decline of 0.1% for units this time last year whilst Melbourne recorded 9.9% increase in houses and a 5.4% increase for units.

All other capital cities recorded growth this time last year with Hobart recording a huge 19.8% house price growth and 10.4% unit price growth, this time last year.