Are we in a seller’s market?

Across the board, Australia reported a marginal decline in new listings over the final month of the financial year, led by a large drop in Hobart (22.6 per cent), followed by significant declines in Perth (6.7 per cent), Adelaide (8.2 per cent) and Melbourne (1.4 per cent).

However, don’t let the national trend fool you. In line with stronger-than-usual winter sales conditions, new listings rose in Brisbane (6 per cent), Canberra (4.6 per cent), Darwin (3.6 per cent) and Sydney (1.2 per cent).

Even with these increases, Mr Moore explained “2023’s trend of slower property market activity continued,” especially considering every capital city reported fewer listings last month than the equivalent period in 2022.

Regional Northern Territory is the only Australian market to report a year-on-year increase in new listings (17.8 per cent) according to PropTrack’s data.

Moving forward, he forecasts: “We may be seeing a concentration of buyer attention on a smaller flow of new properties hitting the market.”

Indicative of the market’s present preference towards sellers, CoreLogic’s most recent Home Value Index (HVI), also covering June, found national property prices jumped 1.7 per cent during the sixth month of the year. It was the fourth consecutive month the research firm’s HVI had risen.

While activity is likely to appear subdued over the remaining months of winter, spring will bring with it an increased level of activity, especially around the typical peak months of October and November.

Australian sellers will hope selling conditions, which Mr Moore described as having “improved compared to the second half of 2022,” will continue into the warmer months of the year. An indication of this stronger-than-usual performance has been the incredibly strong clearance rates reported across the country in recent months.

More broadly speaking, Mr Moore explained: “The fundamentals of housing demand remain strong.”

“Rental markets are extremely tight across much of the country amid strong demand and limited rental availability,” he said. Further contributing to such tight rental conditions has been the resumption of international migration, a factor he believes “will further add to housing demand”.

With unemployment hovering near a five-year low, wages rising and indications of inflation, and as such interest rates, may have passed their peak. Mr Moore concluded these economic conditions “could provide a sense of certainty to buyers and sellers”.