With the COVID-19 pandemic now shaking the metaphorical snow globe we’re all eagerly waiting for things to settle back into a new normal, at which point there’s every reason to hope our property fundamentals will kickstart a strong recovery.
So what were our property fundamentals telling us just a few short weeks and months ago?
Firstly, Brisbane was Australia’s second fastest growing city behind Melbourne. At 30 June 2019, the population of Greater Brisbane was 2.51 million, an increase of 52,590 persons on the 2018 figure.
That’s the highest volume of growth for ten years, reports Property Update.
This growth was thanks in part to our birth rate, but also migration from interstate and overseas. Now, with borders firmly shut, there’s not much migration going on. But these are temporary measures so Brissie will open its doors to population growth again in due course.
Another stat to consider is the proportion of properties that sold for a loss. In Brisbane at the end of the December 2019 quarter, just over one in 10 properties, 11.3 per cent, sold for less than the seller paid. That’s almost bang on the national average of 11.4 per cent. In Sydney the figure was 8.1 per cent, while 45.6 per cent of Darwin sellers and 36.1 per cent of Perth sellers took a loss.
So what will happen to resale values in 2020? CoreLogic’s Eliza Owen offered this observation:
“As housing activity is disrupted due to weaker economic conditions and social distancing policies related to curving the spread of coronavirus, profit making resales could become less common in 2020. However, whatever downturn is to be endured in property over the next 6 months to a year, it follows a decade of strong growth rates. As with the results in the December quarter, profit making sales are more common where hold periods are higher.”
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