Property Price Rises in Australia 2013 and Hotspots

house So, we have some geezer who has been wandering around Australia predicting that 2014 will see dramatic house price falls here in Australia, he is quoting a minimum of 27% in Sydney.

Should we believe him? After all, he is also trying to sell a book on the subject.

Predictions are fun, but you can’t beat cold hard facts from the past if you want absolute accuracy. So today I’m looking at what did happen to house prices here in Australia in 2013.

Here are those facts from the Australian Bureau of Statistics which you can read in full if you visit the ABS.

Residential property price rises Dec Qtr 12 to Dec Qtr 13

  • Sydney 13.8%
  • Melbourne 7.9%
  • Brisbane 5.7%
  • Adelaide 3.4%
  • Perth 8.7%
  • Hobart 4.9%
  • Darwin 5%
  • Canberra –0.3%

Weighted average of eight capital cities 9.3%

So, property prices have certainly picked up since I last wrote about the subject almost a year ago in my post called Australian House Prices: Capital Markets Report 2013.

So, what for 2014?

Well, the ‘geezer’ I referred to earlier is American economist Harry S. Dent Jnr and he says the property bubble will burst big time following an even bigger burst in the market over in China.

Fitch, a well-respected global ratings company, doesn’t agree but does expect slower growth for Australia this year of around 4%.

I’ll tell you what I think will happen to property in 2014 in a post I will probably write at about the same time next year. But what’s selling fast?

Hot property

According to an article 4 days ago in News.com.au, the 10 most popular places for houses sold over the last 12 months in Australia were:

  • Pakenham, VIC
  • Port Macquarie, NSW
  • Berwick, VIC
  • Dubbo, NSW
  • Point Cook, VIC
  • Frankston, VIC
  • Mildura, VIC
  • Craigieburn, VIC
  • Canning Vale, WA
  • Orange, NSW

Nothing in the top 10 for Queensland then, although I can tell you that Buderim in the Sunshine Coast came top in the full list which you can see over at news.com.au. That full list also had nothing at all for any of our other states or territories.

Just to save you all grabbing your atlases, Point Cook, Frankston, Craigieburn, Berwick and Pakenham are all within driving distance of Melbourne city centre, but something like 25 to 60 kilometres or so away.

I’ve been to Frankston, it has a little creek…

FrankstonAnd it’s also by the sea…

Frankston 2Mildura, despite the fact it is in Victoria, is nearer to Adelaide than Melbourne, but close to neither.

Orange and Dubbo are both a fair distance from Sydney being around 250 to 300 kilometres away and Port Macquarie, which is on the coast, is even further at almost 400 kilometres away.

I drove through Dubbo a few years back, you have to cover a lot of this before you get there…

Road to DubboAnd as I said, Port Macquarie is on the coast…

Port MacquarieCanning Vale, the most popular suburb in all of Western Australia on the other hand is pretty close to Perth CBD, being about 20 kilometres away.

The overwhelming message though is the southern end of the country is more popular than the north. And perhaps the underlying message is that city centre living is becoming too expensive so people are choosing to live in outer suburbs, or in some cases, quite some distance from our capital cities.

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{ 4 comments… add one }
  • Tanya February 20, 2014, 2:22 am |

    Hiya been seeing “Perth CBD” a lot lately but not sure what
    the “CBD” stands for as we will b moving there in the near
    future!! Thanks
    Tanya

    • clare roche February 20, 2014, 6:23 am |

      Im sure CBD is the city centre.

    • Di February 20, 2014, 12:17 pm |

      Hey Tanya!

      Perth CBD is Aussie for “Central Buisness District” – what (myself) as a Canadian would call “downtown”. The concept of living in the core of the city – in an apartment high-rise or such – is just catching on here in Perth unlike Vancouver where I am from. I live in the “CBD” as it were and think it’s fabulous – close to all the amenities! Restaurants, shops, bars, transit, theatres, schools, parks, festivals of all kinds – plus the coastal beaches are only about 15-20 minutes drive. The commute is great for my partner as he is always headed in the opposite flow of traffic. (And commuter traffic is getting pretty dire as the city sprawls far north and south.) They are in the midst of building plenty of apartments and constructing Elizabeth Quay – a multi-million dollar revitalization to the waterfront. So the moniker of “CBD” as merely a central “business” district is fast becoming a misnomer…Hope that helps somewhat! Best of Luck! Di

      • BobinOz February 21, 2014, 1:02 pm |

        In the UK we would simply refer to it as the ‘city centre’, I think CBD is a bit of a misnomer for all our cities. I wonder if any other English-speaking country calls it the CBD? City centre or downtown do seem more appropriate.

        But it’s a small gripe 🙂

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