New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has revealed that the value of residential dwellings in Australia exceeded $10 trillion for the first time in the March quarter.
The bureau reported that Australia’s 10.8 million residential dwellings were worth a combined $10.2 trillion, an increase of $221.2 billion compared to the previous quarter.
“The total value of residential dwellings rose $1.8 trillion in the 12 months to the March quarter 2022 from $8.4 trillion in the March quarter 2021,” noted ABS head of prices statistics Michelle Marquardt.
On an annual basis, median house price growth eased to 16.4 per cent in Sydney and 9.4 per cent in Melbourne. Prices in both cities have since fallen into decline month-on-month according to recent figures from CoreLogic.
The ABS found that Brisbane had recorded the strongest annual growth in house prices (29.3 per cent) followed by Canberra (28.3 per cent), Adelaide (23.8 per cent), Hobart (23.4 per cent) and Darwin (12.1 per cent), while Perth posted growth of only 1.9 per cent.
“Over the past year, growth in median prices in regional NSW and Victoria has outpaced growth in their capital cities for both houses and attached dwellings,” said Ms Marquardt.
Within the regional areas of the states and territories, Tasmania was the best performer with 30.0 per cent annual house price growth, just ahead of NSW with 29.1 per cent growth.
Double-digit annual growth was also seen in SA (18.7 per cent), Victoria (17.4 per cent) and Queensland (12.8 per cent) but growth in WA (4.9 per cent) and the NT (2.4 per cent) lagged behind.
For attached dwellings including flats, units and apartments as well as semi-detached, row and terrace houses, the biggest annual increases were recorded in Hobart (24.1 per cent), Canberra (24.0 per cent), Darwin (19.9 per cent), Brisbane (10.0 per cent) and Adelaide (6.8 per cent).
Growth was significantly more muted in Sydney (1.3 per cent) and Melbourne (0.2 per cent) while Perth suffered a fall of 1.6 per cent.
Meanwhile, the regional areas of WA (21.7 per cent) and Tasmania (21.6 per cent) were leaders in terms of attached dwelling price growth over the year while SA suffered a fall of 4.2 per cent.
Nationally, the mean residential price nationally was reported by the ABS to be $941,900 in the March quarter compared to $925,300 during the December quarter of 2021.
NSW accounted for just over 40 per cent of the country’s total value of residential property at $4.1 trillion, ahead of Victoria with 26.9 per cent ($2.7 trillion) and Queensland with 16.7 per cent ($1.7 trillion).
Jon Bragg
Jon Bragg is a journalist for Momentum Media's Investor Daily, nestegg and ifa. He enjoys writing about a wide variety of financial topics and issues and exploring the many implications they have on all aspects of life.
