Sydney house prices fall: ABS

Sydney's residential prices have dropped 1.6 percent in the December 2015 quarter, according to the ABS recent Residential property prices index release.

They are still 13.9 percent up however annually.

Canberra saw the biggest increase over the quarter, with a 2.8 percent increase, with Hobart increasing by 2.5 percent.

Melbourne and Brisbane increased by 1.6 percent each.

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Pete Wargent was one of the first to take to Twitter, highlighting the changes since 2008.

The Sydney price drop news quickly travelled the world, and was picked up by US-based @autoforexalerts 

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DECEMBER KEY POINTS

CHANGES TO RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY PRICE INDEX

• The price index for residential properties for the weighted average of the eight capital cities rose 0.2% in the December quarter 2015. The index rose 8.7% through the year to the December quarter 2015.
• The capital city residential property price indexes rose in Melbourne (+1.6%), Brisbane (+1.6%), Adelaide (+0.9%), Canberra (+2.8%), Perth (+0.5%) and Hobart (+2.5%) and fell in Sydney (-1.6%) and Darwin (-1.8%). 
• Annually, residential property prices rose in Sydney (+13.9%), Melbourne (+9.6%), Canberra (+6.0%), Brisbane (+4.2%), Hobart (+3.5%) and Adelaide (+3.3%) and fell in Darwin (-3.2%) and Perth (-2.9%). 

TOTAL VALUE OF THE DWELLING STOCK

• The total value of residential dwellings in Australia was $5,885,967.2m at the end of December quarter 2015, rising $31,557.1m over the quarter. 
• The mean price of residential dwellings rose $800 to $612,100 and the number of residential dwellings rose by 38,700 to 9,615,800 in the December quarter 2015.