House prices head south, north and east
Author: Jacob Saulwick and Ben Cubby
Date: June 28, 2008
Publication: Sydney Morning Herald (subscribe)
It could be a warning sign, or maybe just a blip. Property sales are flashing a signal that the fall in Sydney house prices will not be limited to the city's west.
An analysis of 2008 sales reveals that the great Sydney equation - take property, mix with water views, and you cannot go wrong - could be breaking down.
Even at Bondi, where prices have jumped 12.6 per cent in the past four years, the median price has fallen 1.6 per cent this year after 42 sales, figures from Australian Property Monitors show.
At Avoca Beach on the Central Coast, 115 houses have changed hands this year for a median price of $546,000 - 5 per cent lower than last year's.
In the nearby holiday spot of MacMasters Beach, median sale prices have fallen 15.6 per cent. A few falls do not necessarily make a trend. But property insiders are warning there is little confidence in a market rocked by rising interest rates, fuel prices and a skittish stockmarket.
"Everyone is sitting on their hands," said Kim Quick, a property valuer at Herron Todd White.
The AMP Capital Investors chief economist, Shane Oliver, warned that Sydney property was about 20 per cent over-valued.
Property prices are tumbling in the US and parts of Britain, and Australian house prices are even more expensive in comparison.
In the US the ratio of annual income to house prices is about 3:1. In Australia it is about 6:1.
"I think the weakness we are seeing out west will start to spread to the better suburbs," DrOliver said.
"It wouldn't surprise me if they came off about 10 per cent over the next 12 months, and that fall being widespread."
In Newport, on the northern beaches, 163 houses have been sold this year, the most recent figures from Australian Property Monitors show. This year's median house price has been 2.2per cent lower than last year's.
Real estate agents in some Sydney beachside suburbs say the local downturn is little more than a quirk. Water views will always generate plenty of interest.
In Tamarama, tucked between Bondi and Bronte, a house in Thompson Street sold for a record $10million this week.
The principal at Raine & Horne Palm Beach, Glenn Lee, said: "What we're seeing now is a patchy market in some sectors and strength in others.
"With the premium properties, these are sophisticated players who are simply waiting for the right place to appear." The agency is listing a waterfront house in Newport at $1.85 million, after it failed to sell at an auction with a reserve price of more than $2million.
At the top end of the market, in Palm Beach, 58 houses have been sold for 5.6 per cent less than the median price last year.
The fall comes after a 62 per cent jump in the median house price, to $2.55million, in the past four years. |
发表于 2-7-2008 10:33:05
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