Melbourne apartment among most discounted properties for first time in a year
At the same time as Melbourne leads the nation in falling house prices, a two-level apartment in the inner-city suburb of Southbank has been included among the list of the 10 most heavily discounted properties in Australia, the first time in 12 months a Victorian property has made the list.
The property, apartment 2506, 83 Queensbridge Street, is the nation’s ninth most heavily discounted property, according to the June 16 weekly top 10 list compiled by SQM Research.
The property was listed on October 31 and has been on the market for 217 days. It was last passed in at auction on May 21, but is now being sold privately by Robert Mitchelson from Icon Property, who has only held the listing for a few weeks.
SQM has been compiling the list of discounted properties for a year, and managing director Louis Christopher told Property Observer he believed it was the first time a Melbourne property has made it on to the list.
“What is particularly noteworthy about this week's list is that we have finally been graced with the addition of a discounted property in Victoria,” Christopher says.
“Bear in mind we are cautious on it given it is going to auction and the property could be underquoted,” he says.
The three-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment was originally up for sale at a price of $2.15 million, but is currently being marketed by with a price range of $1.5 million to $1.65 million.
It has panoramic views looking south down Port Phillip Bay over Albert Park Lake, St Kilda Marina and all the way to M. Martha and the other side over the Yarra River, Crown Casino and the city. Other features include a powder room, parquet floors and a dining area that joins two large balconies.
Figures released by Real Estate Institute of Australia reveal that Melbourne has led a nationwide fall in house prices, with the average median price in the Victorian capital falling down 6% to $565,000 over the first three months of the year.
Sydney and Adelaide are the only capital cities to record house price increases, with Sydney median prices up 1.1% to $637,258 and Adelaide prices up 0.2% to $410,000.
Nationwide, the median price of a house in Australia’s capital cities has fallen 2.5% to $532,695 in the first three months of the year, according to the REIA’s Real Estate Market Facts report.
REIA president David Airey says the reductions represent a “deceleration in property prices after a period of solid growth in previous quarters”.
“We are witnessing the impact on prices of increases in cash rates during the second half of last year. Rises in the cost of living have restrained household spending and the natural disasters in Queensland have also significantly affected the property market,” he says.
However, Airey calls the latest results a “softening of the housing market explained by economic factors, not a bubble starting to burst”.
The decrease in property prices was accompanied by a decline in the value of owner-occupation and investment loans, which declined 17.6% and 18.2% during the March quarter respectively, one of the largest quarterly declines observed since the September 2002 quarter.