Australian Financial Times: Sydney House Price growth returns to double digits
Sydney`s annual home price growth rate was above 10 percent for the second consecutive month, according to the October Australian House Price Index released by Corelogic Statistics.
Sydney`s house prices have consolidated their upward trend.
Last year, many market figures and experts estimated that house price growth in Sydney this year would be relatively low, but they were all wrong.
Home prices grew at an annual rate of 10.6% in October, compared with 10.2% in September.
The current median price for Sydney houses (including stand-alone houses and apartments) is A $800000.
Sydney`s house prices have risen by an astonishing 95.7% since the world economic crisis in January 2009.
Melbourne also jumped 81.8% in the same period, compared with 33.2% in Canberra.
Another double-digit growth rate this year was 10.5% in January, when the Sydney housing market began to cool down.
After that, Sydney`s annual house price growth rate was lower than double-digit rates.
A return to double-digit growth is a big headache for many first-time buyers.
They are getting farther and farther away from the affordable Sydney house.
Sydney house prices are also an important indicator of the Bank of Australia`s concern.
Tim Lawless, director of research at Corelogic, said Sydney`s home price growth was slower than it was 12 months ago, despite the reported increase in housing prices.
Sydney`s house prices have risen for four and a half years in a row.
As house prices in Sydney and Melbourne continue to soar, the auction clearance rate is still high.
This will lead to more discussions in Australian society about the unaffordability of housing.
This will also make the Bank of Australia more cautious when considering whether to cut interest rates.
Melbourne`s house price growth rate is 9.1% a year, the Corelogic also reported.
Melbourne`s house price growth rate was 12.8% in the same period last year.
Sydney was 15.6% of the super-high.
In addition, the capital, Canberra, a long-term growth rate, housing prices rose 5.6% in the previous quarter.
In Sydney, the growth rate of independent houses is not too different from the growth rate of apartment prices.
But in Melbourne and Perth, apartment prices are growing at a much lower rate than independent prices.
Tim Lawless, director of research at Corelogic, says the high rate of growth in housing prices in Sydney illustrates another problem.
A lot of people can`t afford to buy independent houses in Sydney anymore, so they have to go to buy apartments, especially first-time home buyers and investors.
