Both national property listings and capital city asking prices declined in January: SQM

National residential listings only declined marginally by 0.03% in January 2019 to 328,089 from 328,203 in December 2018, according to figures released by SQM Research.

The figures show both Sydney and Melbourne were down 2.3%, whilst Canberra dropped 2%. 

However, all other capital cities had marginal increases in residential listings for January. Hobart recorded the largest increase at 1.4%.

Seasonally it is normal for large listing declines to be recorded in January as the property market goes into hibernation for the holiday period.

So SQM Research's Louis Christopher regards the minimal declines as a weak result for the market.

Compared to a year ago, national listings rose 8%, with Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra’s year-on-year listings increasing the most - Melbourne up 42.3%, Canberra 24.6% and Sydney 22.3%.

Year-on-year results for Hobart shows a yearly decline of 1.9%, with residential property listings dropping from 2,362 in January 2018 to 2,318 in January 2019. Darwin also experienced yearly declines of sale listings of 0.6%.

Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research said, “listings in January recorded a very minor decrease, with some cities actually recording increases."

"This is abnormal and concerning. It implies that vendors had a terrible spring selling season with most still trying to move their properties in January."

"Many have not been able to sell. We are now expecting a surge in listings over February,” he added.

(Source: SQM Research)

SQM also found that capital city asking prices for units and houses declined by 0.4% and 2.2% respectively, for the month to 5 February 2019.

Unit asking prices are now $572,800 and houses $915,900.

The largest monthly decline was in Sydney, where house asking prices declined by 1.7% but did manage a modest 0.3% increase in house prices.

Hobart posted increases in both unit and house asking prices over the month, 1.7% and 0.1% respectively.

However, both unit and house asking prices declined in Brisbane and Melbourne over the month.

Darwin experienced a notable 5.5% increase in unit prices.

Year-on-year capital city asking prices also experienced declines of 2.6% for units and 6.2% for houses.

Year-on-year Hobart continued to show the strongest growth for both houses and units with a 4.0% increase in houses and 7.0% for units.

Canberra also experienced yearly growth with 2.7% increase in houses and 3.8% increase in units.