Two of Melbourne’s most popular suburbs – St Kilda East and South Yarra – are two of the locations that have been hardest hit by the property downturn.
Both suburbs have experienced house price falls in the vicinity of the 20 per cent range over 2018.
The figures come from Domain Group data and this high 20 per cent number from these two suburbs compares to the city-wide figure of around 7 per cent house price falls for 2018.
Interestingly, it’s some of the suburbs on the city’s outskirts with lower price medians that have dodged some of the falling house prices.
Gary Peer Real Estate’s Jeremy Rosens spoke to Australian Financial Review.
“There are some really high-end homes that can sell upwards of $5 million in St Kilda East and then there are single properties on small blocks of land that tend to be investment-grade stock,” he said.
“That sub-$1 million housing market had been an investor-driven market over the years, but investors have all but disappeared for all sorts of reasons – land taxes, finance restrictions and the uncertainty of an upcoming election.”
Domain data analyst Nicola Powell said the fall in prices had a lot to do with the type of property being sold rather than just capital growth changes.
“Some of these inner area suburbs are feeling the brunt of the downturn and South Yarra, which recorded a high volume of transactions, had some of the biggest swings in the market,” she told AFR.
“What we might be seeing is that those owners of multimillion-dollar homes in the area are holding off and more homes at the lower end of the price spectrum in the suburb being sold.”
Hardest hit property price suburbs in 2018
St Kilda East – down 18%
South Yarra – down 17.7%
Clayton – down 17.4%
Abbotsford – down 17.1%
Flemington – down 16.8%
North Melbourne – down 16.8%
South Melbourne – down 16.7%
Fairfield – down 16.5%
Lower Plenty – down 16.5%
Collingwood – 15.6%
