Sydney no longer belle of the property ball

Despite Sydney no longer holding the top spot, the east coast of Australia still dominated, with Melbourne and Brisbane sharing top spot with 27 per cent of the votes each.

Finder’s insights manager, Graham Cooke, said the vast majority of economists are now steering clear of advising investment in Sydney.

“Sydney has traditionally been Australia’s darling in the property market, but it is no longer the belle of the ball,” he commented.

Sydney and Canberra received 14 per cent of the votes apiece, while Adelaide and Perth were the least enticing to the experts, with just 9 per cent of the votes.

While Finder’s insights manager acknowledged the depreciated value of Sydney’s property market, he believes this has not enticed investors back into the market.

“Prices have just started to recover after falling nearly 15 per cent from the heady days of 2017, but sales volumes are still low and many investors and potential sellers are in a holding pattern,” he outlined. 

According to Mr Cooke, the high price of property compared with income levels is still keeping property investors away from the Sydney market.

He considered this as the reason why the Sydney market has been somewhat slow to bounce back compared to other east coast capital cities.

Despite the slower recovery, Mr Cooke indicated a belief that Sydney is showing some signs of life.

“On the bright side, both prices and auction clearance rates are slowly heading in the right direction in the Harbour City, but these results indicate that the previous market highs are still a way off,” Mr Cooke concluded.