{"id":189806,"date":"2025-08-31T18:10:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-31T18:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/189806\/"},"modified":"2025-08-31T18:10:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-31T18:10:19","slug":"home-prices-keep-rising-in-sellers-market-as-new-property-listings-below-average","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/189806\/","title":{"rendered":"Home prices keep rising in ‘seller’s market’ as new property listings below average"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australian property prices have pushed higher again in August, as lower interest rates, rising real wages and buyer optimism collided with a shortage of homes for sale.<\/p>\n

Nationally, home values rose for the seventh consecutive month, up 0.7 per cent, according to figures from property research firm Cotality (formerly known as CoreLogic) \u2014 the strongest monthly gain since May last year.<\/p>\n

The national median home value is now $848,858, up 4.1 per cent over the year.<\/p>\n

Brisbane recorded the strongest monthly capital city rise, up 1.2 per cent, with a median value of $949,538.<\/p>\n

Hobart was the only capital where values fell in August, down 0.2 per cent.<\/p>\n

Australia’s most expensive city remained Sydney, with a median value of $1,224,341.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Melbourne has become more affordable than smaller capitals, including Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.<\/p>\n

Darwin posted the largest annual gain (10.2 per cent), with a median value of $553,131.<\/p>\n

Eliza Owen, head of research at Cotality, said the drivers of rising home values were straightforward.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got more demand in the housing market, with real wages growth up to its highest level in five years, lower interest rates and more consumer confidence aiding housing purchases,” Ms Owen said.<\/p>\n

“But on the supply side, more hesitancy from sellers through the start of the year means that listing volumes are pretty low.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Ms Owen said advertised home listings were down about 20 per cent compared to usual.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got about 120,000 properties on the market for sale right now, whereas usually this time of year, the five-year average would be 150,000.<\/p>\n

“So rising demand against tight supply is continuing to see a rise in home values.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Cotality head of research Eliza Owen says demand is outpacing the supply of homes to buy. (ABC News: John Gunn)<\/p>\n

‘More buyers with less to choose from’<\/p>\n

Sydney real estate agent Tina O’Connor said competition for available properties is strong.<\/p>\n

“It’s probably a seller’s market at the moment \u2014 just the shortage of stock is what’s driving prices right now,” she said.<\/p>\n

At two in-house auctions held by Ms O’Connor’s agency last week and attended by the ABC, cashed-up owner-occupiers who had recently sold their homes outbid investors.<\/p>\n

Bidding on a two-bedroom flat in Sydney’s inner west started at $1.65 million, before an owner-occupier bought the property for $1.93 million.<\/p>\n

Next up was a three-bedroom, three-bathroom weatherboard Newtown home, which sold for $2.65 million to upsizers \u2014 $600,000 above the opening bid.<\/p>\n

Ms O’Connor was blunt about market conditions: “There are more buyers with less to choose from, so that’s what creates the competition.<\/p>\n

“We would like to see more properties hitting the market.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Levels of advertised housing remain about 20 per cent below average for this time of the year, Cotality has found. (ABC News: John Gunn)<\/p>\n

She said spring should hopefully see an increase in property listings.<\/p>\n

“Coming into the spring season now, we’ll probably see more people coming out and about,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Hopefully there will be more properties that are hitting the internet.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brisbane heading towards seller’s market<\/p>\n

At a busy East Brisbane auction, bidding opened at $1 million for a three-bedroom, one-bathroom weatherboard home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Fifteen registered bidders competed, with an owner-occupier securing it for $1.47 million.<\/p>\n

Real estate agent Tony O’Doherty said Brisbane’s market is benefiting from buzz around the upcoming Olympic Games and infrastructure investment.<\/p>\n

“East Brisbane is a couple of kilometres from the city, it will never be this cheap again, so the owners have done very well [and] the buyers have bought a great asset,” he said.<\/p>\n

He also pointed to a seller’s market.<\/p>\n

“We can feel the impact, whether it’s a combination of lack of stock, spring, interest rate cuts or all of the above.<\/p>\n

“It’s hard to know, but I can tell you the market is responding well.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

A crowd builds for an auction in Brisbane at the weekend. (ABC News: Stephen Clarke)<\/p>\n

Affordability a handbrake on growth<\/p>\n

Further interest rate cuts are expected to add more fuel to property price growth.<\/p>\n

Even so, Ms Owen said the pace of the upswing remains more modest than recent cycles \u2014 well below the pandemic-era monthly peak of 3.1 per cent in March 2021, and the 1.3 per cent high in May 2023.<\/p>\n

She explained that stretched affordability is likely to cap momentum.<\/p>\n

“Even though interest rates are falling, they’re higher than what they were in 2020 and 2021,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Housing values are a lot more expensive too, so the affordability constraint is kind of keeping a lid on [monthly] growth, which has been running under 1 per cent.”<\/p>\n

First-home buyer policy set to add heat<\/p>\n

From October 1, the expanded First Homebuyer Guarantee \u2014 with unlimited places, no income caps and higher price caps \u2014 is expected to bolster demand, particularly among first-home buyers with smaller deposits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Australia pumps house prices, Trump pursues ‘state-run capitalism’<\/a><\/p>\n

President Donald Trump opens the door to “state-run capitalism” in the US, while Australia keeps pumping house prices.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The federal scheme allows first homebuyers to purchase a property with just a 5 per cent deposit, without paying lenders mortgage insurance, with the government assuring the remainder of the deposit in the case of a default.<\/p>\n

“I think the expansion of the scheme and the timing of that expansion is definitely going to provide some short-term boost to transaction activity \u2026 and quite possibly value increases as well \u2026 fresh off the back of rate cuts,” Ms Owen said.<\/p>\n

Like many property analysts, Ms Owen questioned Treasury’s forecast that the policy will lift home values by only 0.5 per cent over six years<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Look, we haven’t done the modelling on it, but you’d have to imagine that there could be an increase larger than [Treasury’s forecast] in the short term \u2026 tight supply levels and lower interest rates \u2026 the income caps have been lifted \u2026 there’s potential for prices to be driven up,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is a view shared by Rabobank senior market strategist Ben Picton, who has warned the policy risks pushing prices higher while supply remains constrained.<\/p>\n

“Effectively these policies are being marketed as a way to help first home buyers and that may be true in the immediate here and now,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Our first home buyers today might get a little bit of a leg up, but what about first home buyers a few years down the track?<\/p>\n

“They’re sort of being thrown under the bus to help others into the market a little bit earlier.”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Ben Picton is a senior macro strategist for the RaboResearch Global Economics & Markets. (ABC News: Shaun Kingma)<\/p>\n

Mr Picton said Australia’s housing market is already overvalued on many metrics, but said whether the bubble will ever pop is anyone’s guess<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Housing is, I guess, too big to fail because the composition of the major banks’ balance sheets in Australia has gone from being something like 20 to 30 per cent residential mortgages in the early 1990s, to more like 60 per cent residential mortgages today.<\/p>\n

“Effectively our banks have been transformed into gigantic building societies and if we were to see a major correction in house prices, it would start to present real risks to the stability of the banking system.”<\/p>\n

Rental vacancies still near record lows<\/p>\n

National rents recorded the fastest monthly growth since May last year, up 0.5 per cent, taking annual growth to 4.1 per cent.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Rental growth: August 2025 (Supplied: Cotality)<\/p>\n

The national vacancy rate is 1.5 per cent, roughly half the 2015\u201319 average (3.3 per cent).<\/p>\n

Darwin is leading capital rental growth (houses up 6.5 per cent, units \u00a0up 9.4 per cent), with yields around 6.5 per cent.<\/p>\n

Sydney has the highest advertised rents (house $833\/wk, unit $749\/wk), while Hobart has the lowest (house $603\/wk, unit $506\/wk).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian property prices have pushed higher again in August, as lower interest rates, rising real wages and buyer…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":189807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[25403,10934,64,106143,106140,13926,13265,106141,106144,13925,81043,267,135,18929,14737,10558,13328,13326,4329,106142,44337,13048,106145,106146,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-189806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-adelaide","9":"tag-brisbane","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-cnaberra","12":"tag-corelogic","13":"tag-cotality","14":"tag-darwin","15":"tag-domain","16":"tag-eliza-owen","17":"tag-home-loan","18":"tag-house-prices","19":"tag-interest-rates","20":"tag-markets","21":"tag-melbourne","22":"tag-perth","23":"tag-property","24":"tag-rate-cut","25":"tag-rba","26":"tag-real-estate","27":"tag-realestate-com-au","28":"tag-reserve-bank-of-australia","29":"tag-sydney","30":"tag-tina-oconnor","31":"tag-tony-doherty","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115124727290387652","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}