The absolutely fabulous Corelogic house price series is showing falls in house prices. To be sure, the falls are from a staggeringly high base, but compared with the peak in the series in late April, house prices are down 1.9 per cent. What is interesting is where the price falls have been concentrated.
While each capital city had a different point for the recent price peak:
- Melbourne prices are now down a not insignificant 4.0 per cent since April.
- Sydney prices have eased by 2.2 per cent since the early May high.
- Perth prices are 2.6 per cent down from their December 2014 peak.
- Brisbane prices are off a more moderate 0.7 per cent while Adelaide prices, well here’s a shock, have reached a new high, having generally lagged the boom cities for the last few years.
It would be wrong to be excited about a modest drop in house prices for a couple of months after such a strong and unrelenting rise in recent years. But the Corelogic data is telling me that the house price boom is almost certainly over. The debate will soon start to shift about what sort of price drop we are likely to see.
