Melbourne Property News Monthly Wrap – January 2016

Auctions take a break in January, but clearance rates are strong.

Welcome to 2016! What will the year hold in store? Stay tuned to VM’s Property Market Wrap and you will know as soon as it happens, or maybe before!

Our first 2016 publication covers results from December 21 to January 31. 210 auctions were reported to the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) with 156 sales recorded, 54 properties were passed in, 21 on a vendor bid. The clearance rate averaged 74%.

Data from the December 2015 Quarter tells us the demand for affordable housing drove strong localised growth around the outer suburban ring with median prices rising 10% in Frankston South, Warrandyte, Greenvale and Werribee. Middle suburb Parkdale also rose 10%. A strong local economy contributed to price growth over 2015 and will continue to add confidence in outer and middle belts. The booming levels of price growth (6%) we saw in the 2015 June Quarter are unlikely to be repeated in Melbourne’s expensive inner suburbs while the stock market continues its weak performance. In the December Quarter Melbourne’s overall price growth settled down to 1.8%.

Looking interstate, the slowdown in Sydney has sharpened with a clearance rate of just 43% on January’s last weekend. Low clearance rates have triggered a sharp decrease in house values producing a dramatic drop of 3.1% over December, bringing the curtain down with a thump on Sydney’s three-year price boom.

January’s low auction numbers can still give us an indication of the general sentiment in the Melbourne market and the high clearance rate shows signs the sellers’ market is continuing into 2016. But the rising number of auctions over the next few weeks will bring a clearer picture.

Craig Knudsen
Principal Advisor
Vendor Marketing

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