Australia property prices continued to drop in June 2011, according RP Data-Rismark Hedonic’s latest home value index for capital cities.
Based on almost 150,000 home sales nationally over 2011, the report found that Sydney house prices dropped 0.2 per cent in June 2011. Melbourne house prices dipped 0.1 per cent for the month, pushing the decline for the year ended June 30 to 2 per cent.
Brisbane house prices fell 0.3 per cent, Adelaide’s by 0.5 per cent, while Perth house prices posted a slide of 0.2 per cent and Darwin fell by 2.8 per cent.
Hobart house prices gained 0.9 per cent in June 2011.
According to the same report, Sydney was the only capital city to post a rise in home prices over the year to June 30, with values rising by 0.5 per cent. Brisbane’s housing market fell the most with losses of 6.3 per cent, followed by Perth at 4.7 per cent, Adelaide at 3.1 per cent and Hobart at 2.8 per cent.
Property analysts generally agreed that market conditions were being dampened by soft consumer confidence fuelled by interest rate speculation and global economic jitters. Some of them thought that the higher than expected CPI figures are likely to force RBA to push interest rates higher which means Australia property prices will probably soften a bit further.
However, this could open up attractive investment opportunities for Australia residential property investors.