Sydney Property Market Is Way Ahead Of Peers

Cameron Kusher writes a piece for Property Update where he sheds light on how the Sydney property market has separated itself from any other real estate territory of the country. Across the capital cities, the median selling price for both units and detached houses have been nothing compared to Sydney.

Sydney property market way ahead of the rest

Sydney, and to some extent Melbourne, have reaped rich dividends this property cycle and it is clearly manifest in the handsome capital growth posted by the Harbour City. It is an interesting statistic that the combined “capital cities” median price is nowhere near Sydney’s median price for detached houses and units.

Median prices can offer skewed data

Kusher is quick to point out that “compositional bias” at times can skew the median data because some of the houses may be selling at disproportionately low or high prices, but overall it is a significant indicator of the market and at this time, it is definitely showing Sydney in the lead, and big one at that.

Sydney’s troughs higher than peaks of a few others

Since June 2012, the start of the present growth phase, Sydney has outpaced all other capital cities, and this is when it was already the most expensive city in Australia in June 2012.  Interestingly, even when the median house prices recorded their trough in Sydney, they registered $620,000 for detached houses and $465,000 for unit apartments. This is a few lengths ahead of peak prices for some of the capital cities.

And so we know, the November recordings have shown a mammoth leap from these trough figures. Houses have registered a good 51.7% rise, while unites recorded a 38.3% increase.

You can read the original article here.

Some say Sydney is on its second wind, while others feel that it is rallying strongly only because the market has corrected itself before bursting at the edges. I think that no property market is bigger than the concept of the property cycle itself and Sydney may not be on an infinite merry ride.

This said, it has certainly done commendably well this cycle, and statistics do not lie. Sydney should keep being the highest capital growth earner for some time to come. However, its growth rate should mellow down to a sober 5-7% this year.