Possible oversupply of inner Brisbane units push prices down 2.4% in June quarter: APM

The capital city unit market rose 2% over the June quarter with the median price of an apartment rising from $419,090 in March to $427,573.

The results reveal a patchy, fragmented unit market with four cities – Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Adelaide - recording gains over June, but three – Brisbane, Canberra and Hobart - recording falls with no change in Darwin, according to Australian Property Monitors (APM) data.

There was a small upward revision to the March quarter median from a previously reported $417,723.

A notably weak market over the quarter was Brisbane with unit prices falling 2.4% over the quarter from $355,589 to $346,964 to be down 4.4% year-on-year.

It is the third successive quarter that Brisbane unit prices have fallen.

APM senior economist Andrew Wilson says the “significant” fall in the June quarter in Brisbane “may indicate an emerging oversupply of new inner-city apartments”.

The weakest unit market was Hobart with prices falling 7.3% over the quarter from $271,776 in March to $252,050 in June.

Canberra unit prices fell by 1.3%.

In line with its strong detached housing market performance, Melbourne was also the strongest unit market over the quarter with APM recording Melbourne unit prices up 3.7% over the quarter to a median of $411,714 from $395,015 to be up 4.2% year-on-year.

This follows the previous March quarter median being strongly upwardly revised from $402,197.

Year-on-year, Darwin has been the strongest performer with a 10.3% rise in its median unit price to $425,949 followed by Perth (up 9.3% to $387,798) , Sydney (up 4.9% to $491,845) and Melbourne (up 4.2% to $411,714).