BRISBANE has beaten Sydney in annual property price growth, with latest data also pushing the total value of Australia’s homes out to a staggering $6.04 trillion.
The latest Residential Property Price Index issued by the Australian Bureau of Statistics Tuesday found Brisbane property prices grew 4.3 per cent through the year to the end of June, stronger than Sydney’s 3.6 per cent growth.
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The gap in price growth rates could have been a lot higher after Sydney saw six months of falls, but the June quarter saw it pull some of that back, with a 2.8 per cent change between the March and June quarters.
Brisbane was now growing higher than the weighted average of the eight capital cities, ABS found, a feat also achieved by Melbourne (8.2 per cent), Canberra (6 per cent) and Hobart (4.9 per cent). Annually, Adelaide (3.5 per cent) was close to the Sydney growth rate, while Darwin (-6.5 per cent) and Perth (-4.8 per cent) both went backwards.
The new figures put the mean price of Australian homes at $623,000, which covers both units and houses.
Lachlan Walker of Place Advisory said because Brisbane was coming off a low base there was still lots of opportunity here.
“It’s good to finally get a win,” he said. “We’ve bounced along for a while.”
He said the city still represented good buys for southern buyers who were behind half the off-the-plan unit purchases here.
Brisbane adviser Michael Matusik has estimated that only Melbourne and Sydney houses were currently holding to the old mantra of values doubling in 10 years, with Brisbane houses estimated at doubling value over 19.7 years.