The year of the pandemic has been a very good advertisement for residential property as an asset class. And our new Summer edition of The Price Predictor Index demonstrates the point well.
Our analysis of sales activity and prices in capital cities and regional markets across Australia has revealed a series of highly positive outcomes – pointing to strong price growth in 2021.
Many jurisdictions have had the best results on sales trends we have seen in the six years we have been conducting our quarterly surveys, including Sydney, Perth, Regional NSW, Regional Queensland and Regional WA. Brisbane has had its best result since 2015.
Other precincts have done outstandingly well with prices. In Regional Victoria, 92% of suburbs and towns have had growth in their median prices in the past 12 months. In Hobart and Tasmania, 90% of locations have delivered growth, while 80% of towns in Regional South Australia have grown their prices and 81% of Canberra suburbs have had uplift.
Looking at it from another perspective, Canberra and Regional Tasmania have both had some level of house price growth in every one of the past nine months (i.e. since February, when the pandemic struck the nation), while Adelaide, Regional Queensland and Regional NSW have all had growth in eight of the nine months.
One of the dominant themes in this edition of The Price Predictor Index is the trend of people relocating
from the biggest cities to more affordable locations that offer lifestyle. This trend has been gathering speed for a number of years and has been enhanced by the pandemic period,
with its enforced lockdown phases. Regional areas in particular have attracted increased demand as a result of this pattern.
In the most populous states - NSW, Victoria and Queensland - the regional jurisdictions have out-performed their capital cities on the number of suburbs or towns with rising sales activity.
Sydney had a record 93 growth markets in this quarterly survey, but Regional NSW had more, with 116. Melbourne has been outdone by Regional Victoria and Brisbane has been bettered by Regional Queensland. Collectively in those three states, the regional jurisdictions had a total of 223 growth markets, compared to 174 growth suburbs in the capital cities.
Regional towns have also excelled in South Australia, Tasmania and Western Australia. Sales activity is rising and prices are responding.
What started as a steady drift of people moving from the big cities to the smaller cities or to regional areas
has turned into something approaching a stampede.
We know from other research that first-home buyers are one of the most active cohorts in the market.
The lending data shows the market share of FHBs is the highest in more than 10 years. This is reflected in the results of this quarterly survey. In many of our capital cities, the best results in terms of the number of suburbs with upward momentum have been the cheaper areas.
Those are just some of the highlights of this new Summer edition of the Price Predictor Index.
It’s one of our most popular reports because it provides a reliable forward indicator of what’s likely to happen with property prices in every significant suburb and town across Australia. It includes our National Top 50 list of Supercharged suburbs and our National Top 50 list of the most consistent markets in the nation. It highlights the Top 10 municipalities in Australia in terms of uplift in sales activity heading towards strong price growth.

So get yourself a copy of the new Summer edition of the Price Predictor Index to find out what’s going to
happen in real estate across Australia in 2021.