House prices for July buck sluggish economy

Homebuyers

Australian capital city house prices continued to push upwards in July despite the sluggish economy.

CoreLogic’s latest Home Value Index went up 0.8 per cent in July and they have risen 6.1 per cent over the last 12 months.

Since the start of this year, prices have now jumped 6.3 per cent and are at their highest price on record.

Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and Hobart all rose to offset falls in Perth and Brisbane.

After going through a slowdown a short time ago, Sydney has led the way nation-wide, with house prices there up 9.1 per cent from the same time last year.

Sydney is going so strong their median dwelling price, including both houses and apartments, is nearly a whopping $200,000 more that Melbourne’s.

Melbourne’s median dwelling price sits at $585,000 compared to Sydney’s $775,000.

Head or research at CoreLogic Tim Lawless told Business Insider the strong national growth was mainly due to Sydney and Melbourne.

“This demonstrates the strength in the Sydney and Melbourne growth trend with dwelling values across the two largest capitals recording a cumulative 61.3 per cent and 42 per cent over the cycle to date,” he said.

“Hobart, where the growth trend has recently accelerated, has been the next best performer with values rising 17.6 per cent over the growth cycle followed by Brisbane (17.4 per cent), Adelaide (14.3 per cent) and Canberra (12.4 per cent.”

Mr Lawless said while house price gains were slowing they were still rising much faster than incomes making it harder for first home buyers and housing affordability as a whole.

The continued rise in house prices and associated concerns of low interest rates putting upward pressure on them wasn’t enough to stop the RBA cutting interest rates again this week, despite Mr Lawless saying strong clearance rates and rising prices would have made it harder for them to go through with.

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