Brisbane apartment market insights: What happened over May
The Brisbane unit market has seen a reduction while values continue to remain positive across the month of May, according to CoreLogic's Monthly Hedonic Home Value Index.
Values held relatively steady at 1.2 per cent, following on from the 1.4 per cent jump last month and the 1.6 in the month before that. Values are up 7.3 per cent over 2022 already, with the city well in line to outperform the growth seen in 2021.
The median apartment value in Brisbane is now $498,521, a huge increase compared to the start of 2021, where it sat just over $390,000.
Stock levels remain below average across Brisbane, sitting at -38.2 per cent, well below the five-year average. While advertised stock levels provide some insight about the supply side of the market, home sale volumes provide guidance on housing demand.
CoreLogic’s Research Director Tim Lawless said the estimate of homes sales nationally over the three months to May is -19.2% below the same period a year ago, but still 12.1% above the five year average.
“A combination of higher interest rates, lower rates of household saving and a potentially more cautious lending environment is likely to reduce housing demand further just as total advertised stock levels are likely to continue rising, further empowering buyers by creating increased competition amongst vendors,” he added.
Unit rents are rising at a faster annual pace than house rents across the combined capital cities (where house rents increased 8.6% compared to 9.1% across units) and the combined regional areas (where house rents rose 10.7%, behind the 11.0% gain in units).
Brisbane saw an 8.1 per cent annual change in unit rent, sitting just under Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide.
“Early in the pandemic rental demand for medium to high density dwellings fell sharply due to a preference shift towards larger homes and a demand shock from closed international borders,” Lawless said.
“As rental affordability pressures mount, demand for higher density rentals has steadily grown due to the unit sectors’ relative affordability advantage. More recently, demand has been boosted by international arrivals returning to the rental market.”