Queensland residential market activity overtakes NSW and Victoria: PEXA

All states, bar Queensland, experienced quarter-on-quarter declines in overall sale settlements, but volumes remained well ahead of the same period in 2020, according to the latest Property and Mortgage Insights (PMI) Report from PEXA Insights. 

Having largely avoided extended COVID-19 lockdowns, the PMI Report shows that Queensland had more sale settlements in the September quarter than the traditional powerhouse states of New South Wales and Victoria.

Queensland recorded the most sale settlements of any state for the September 2021 quarter at over 59,410, up 3.4% on the Jun-21 quarter and 42.5% on the previous year. 

The locked down states of NSW and Victoria sat behind Queensland reaching 58,047 and 56,196 settlements respectively.

More than $42 billion worth of property was exchanged in Queensland in the quarter, up 93% year-on-year.

Greater Brisbane saw 62% growth year-on-year and Surfers Paradise came in sixth nationally for suburbs ranked by total number of sale settlements in the year to date.

This growth comes amidst a softening of Australia’s property market when compared to the June quarter, but there were still a healthy 210,000 sale settlements completed nationally (up 34% year-on-year).

The New South Wales property market was clamped by the extended COVID-19 restrictions, with 58,000 sale settlements (down 4% on the previous quarter, but up 29% year-on-year) worth more than $71 billion (up 80% year-on-year) processed.

These recent declines were even more evident in Greater Sydney where extended lockdown restrictions were implemented.

Victoria’s property market recorded 56,000 sale settlements (down 5% on the previous quarter, but up 34% year-on-year) worth more than $50 billion (up 79% year-on-year).

Insights show that both Greater Melbourne and Regional Victoria also experienced a decline in sale settlements from the previous quarter, however, Mike Gill, the head of research at PEXA said, Greater Melbourne experienced the sharper drop likely due to the extended lockdown restrictions implemented across the region.

Both Western Australia and South Australia witnessed a quarter-on-quarter decline of sale settlements in the absence of lockdowns.

Western Australia recorded 23,000 sale settlements (down 4% on the previous quarter, but up 36% year-on-year) worth $13 billion (up 62% year-on-year) and South Australia recorded 14,000 sale settlements (down 8% on the previous quarter, but up 20% year-on-year) worth more than $7 billion (up 35% year-on-year).