91% of Aussie sellers are now selling property for a profit

There’s a number of reasons for the high level of vendor success: tight listings, record-low mortgage rates, and “extraordinary” growth in housing values across many of Australia’s markets.

Author of the report, Eliza Owen, is the head of research at CoreLogic and has flagged that not only did profit-making sales rise, but the number of total resales also jumped – by 9 per cent.

She said it “really does reflect the extraordinary recovery in housing values following a small downswing induced by the initial impact of COVID-19”.

The strong market offer meant vendors who did take advantage scored, on average, a gross resale profit of $265,000.

Median gross losses for the same period were -$43,000.

While the longer an owner does hold on to their home generally bodes well for their resale potential, Ms Owen has noted that even newer purchasers are seeing sizeable gains from their position on the property ladder.

Property owners reselling after just two years are already pocketing a median return of $123,000.

And this figure only grows the longer a vendor does hold on to their home: “For those cashing in after over 30 years of holding a property, the median return was $712,000.”

The typical hold period on all resales for the three months to June was 8.8 years.

Ms Owen flagged that regional investors and property owners are benefiting the most, with regional and tree change markets seeing the strongest profit resale figures.

The Ballarat SA4 region has posted the strongest potential for profits, having achieved a record high rate of profitability with 99.7 per cent of resales leading to a profit across the three months to June 2021.

In fact, despite its long lockdowns, the rest of regional Victoria is not far behind. Across the region, 98.7 per cent of resales found buyers above their original purchase price.

Not wanting to be left behind, Sydney’s also posted an almost four-decade profitability high: “97.6 per cent of Sydney house resales achieved a level of gain, the highest level of profit-making resales since 1982,” Ms Owen reported.

“Even markets with relatively elevated levels of loss-making resales saw vast improvement through the June quarter, as the rate of loss-making resales declined -4.6 percentage points across Perth in the June quarter, and -4.7 percentage points across Darwin.”