Housing pandemic recovery pushes prices to all time high

National house prices reached a new all time high as property continued its post-COVID bounceback in January.

House prices rose 0.9 per cent nationally through January 2021. Picture: Mike Dugdale

National housing values have reached a new all time high after prices pushed 1 per cent higher than pre-COVID levels through January.

It was a strong early start to the new year for sales and auctions as buyers came forward helped prices to rise 0.9 per cent nationally, according to property researcher CoreLogic.

Regional markets once again outperformed in comparison to the combined capital cities, more than doubling their rate of increase, up 1.6 per cent compared to 0.7 per cent last month.

Sydney and Melbourne each rose 0.4 per cent, Brisbane and Adelaide were up 0.9 per cent and Perth and Hobart prices pushed 1.6 per cent higher. Darwin continued to be the strongest performer, rising 2.3 per cent for the month, while Canberra rose 1.2 per cent.

CoreLogic’s research director Tim Lawless said the new record was unsurprising, given the market would have reached this point early last year if it had not been for the pandemic.

“Considering we’ve seen consistent growth since September on a national basis - quite strong growth in fact - as well as the growth we saw between the middle of 2019 and pre-COVID, this was largely a COVID-related recovery,” Mr Lawless said.

“The national housing market nearly hit a new record high just before COVID hit. So in many ways, this just closed the gap of that near recovery we saw pre-COVID.

“Then, when you consider how low mortgage rates are and the fact that listing numbers are still so extremely low at a time when buyer demand has risen so quickly, it’s not surprising to see such rapid appreciation in housing values.”

Australian regions reported the highest rate of growth since 2003 over the last quarter, when prices rose 4.7 per cent.

The rise in prices has occurred against a backdrop of low advertised property levels and rising buyer activity. The number of available properties was already quite low at the start of 2021, with the number of fresh listings added to the market in the month to January 24 sitting 3.3 per cent lower nationally than the same period a year ago and 13.3 per cent below the five year average.

Melbourne (up 20.8 per cent) and Perth (up 2.2 per cent) were the only capital city markets to buck the trend and report a rise in listings.

“Melbourne vendors may still be playing catch-up from the earlier lockdown period, while in Perth vendors seem to be relishing the best selling conditions seen in many years,” Mr Lawless said.