Residential Property Price Indexes: Eight Capital Cities

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Estimates of changes in residential property prices and the total value of Australia's dwelling stock, and preliminary housing market activity data

Reference period
March 2020
Released
16/06/2020

Key statistics

Weighted average of the eight capital cities Residential Property Price Index:

  • rose 1.6% this quarter.
  • rose 7.4% over the last twelve months.

The total value of residential dwellings in Australia rose to $7,237.1b this quarter.

Main features

March key statistics

Residential property pricesDec Qtr 19 to Mar Qtr 20Mar Qtr 19 to Mar Qtr 20
% change% change
Weighted average of eight capital cities1.67.4
Sydney1.910.0
Melbourne2.110.4
Brisbane0.62.5
Adelaide0.40.9
Perth0.6-0.9
Hobart2.47.0
Darwin0.7-3.1
Canberra0.23.0

 

 

 

Total value of the dwelling stockMar Qtr 20
Value of dwelling stock(a) ($b)7 237.1
Mean price of residential dwellings ($'000)690.2
Number of residential dwellings ('000)10 485.7

a. all sectors
 

March key points

The Residential Property Price Indexes

Weighted average of the eight capital cities

  • rose 1.6% this quarter.
  • rose 7.4% over the last twelve months.
     

Capital city Residential Property Price Indexes

  • rose in Sydney (+1.9%), Melbourne (+2.1%), Brisbane (+0.6%), Perth (+0.6%), Hobart (+2.4%), Adelaide (+0.4%), Canberra (+0.2%) and Darwin (+0.7%) this quarter.
  • rose in Melbourne (+10.4%), Sydney (+10.0%), Hobart (+7.0%), Canberra (+3.0%), Brisbane (+2.5%) and Adelaide (+0.9%), and fell in Darwin (-3.1%) and Perth (-0.9%), over the last twelve months.
     

Total value of the dwelling stock

  • The total value of residential dwellings in Australia rose $141.6b to $7,237.1b this quarter.
  • The mean price of residential dwellings rose $10,700 to $690,200.
  • The number of residential dwellings rose by 43,700 to 10,485,700.
     

Notes

Revisions

Revisions apply to estimates for the second and third most recent quarters of the total value of dwelling stock (see Revisions, under Total value of dwelling stock, in the Methodology page) and to median prices and transfers (see Revisions, under Dwelling transfer counts and median prices, in the Methodology page).

Use of price indexes in contracts

Price indexes published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) provide summary measures of the movements in various categories of prices over time. They are published primarily for use in Government economic analysis. Price indexes are also often used in contracts by businesses and government to adjust payments and/or charges to take account of changes in categories of prices (Indexation Clauses).

Use of Price Indexes in Contracts sets out a range of issues that should be taken into account by parties considering including an Indexation Clause in a contract using an ABS published price index.

Bushfires in January 2020

Quality assurance undertaken by the ABS has confirmed that the bushfires did not result in quality impacts to residential property price statistics for the March quarter 2020.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) in March quarter 2020

The majority of restrictions relating to COVID-19 which affected the residential property market came into effect in late March, and therefore did not have a noticeable impact on residential property price statistics in the March quarter 2020.

Analysis

Residential Property Price Indexes

 RPPI (a)HPIADPI
 Dec Qtr 19 to
Mar Qtr 20
Dec Qtr 19 to
Mar Qtr 20
Dec Qtr 19 to
Mar Qtr 20
 % change% change% change
Weighted average of eight capital cities1.62.00.7
Sydney1.92.60.8
Melbourne2.12.31.5
Brisbane0.61.1-1.0
Adelaide0.40.40.4
Perth0.60.8-0.5
Hobart2.42.42.4
Darwin0.70.80.5
Canberra0.21.0-2.4

a. See reference to rounding on the Methodology page.

 

Notes

The discussion of individual cities is ordered in terms of their significance to the change in the Residential Property Price Index for the latest quarter. The Residential Property Price Index comprises the House Price Index and the Attached Dwellings Price Index.

Weighted average of the eight capital cities (+1.6%)

Sydney (+1.9%)

Melbourne (+2.1%)

Brisbane (+0.6%)

Perth (+0.6%)

Hobart (+2.4%)

Adelaide (+0.4%)

Canberra (+0.2%)

Darwin (+0.7%)

 

  • The preliminary estimate of the total value of residential dwellings in Australia this quarter was $7,237.1 billion, up from $7,095.5 billion in the December quarter 2019. Of the total value of residential dwellings, $6,911.7 billion was owned by households.
  • The number of residential dwellings rose by 43,700 to 10,485,700 and the mean price of residential dwellings rose $10,700 to $690,200 this quarter.
     
  • The mean price of residential dwellings in New South Wales ($890,400) remains the highest in the country, followed by Victoria ($754,600) and then the Australian Capital Territory ($701,000). The lowest mean price is in the Northern Territory ($413,200).

Data downloads

Table 1. Residential property price index, index numbers and percentage changes

Table 2. Established house price index, index numbers and percentage changes

Table 3. Attached dwellings price index, index numbers and percentage changes

Tables 4 and 5. Median price (unstratified) and number of transfers (capital city and rest of state)

Table 6. Value of residential dwellings, all series

Table 7. All index numbers

Table 8. Established house price index, index numbers, pre-September quarter 2005 methodology

Previous catalogue number

This release previously used catalogue number 6416.0.

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