12 Month Stretch Sees 1 In 10 Homes Sell For More Than $1M

Australia’s residential property prices have broken another record, with one out of every 10 homes sold in a capital city over the 12 months to March 2015 fetching more than $1 million according to analysis from CoreLogic RP Data.

At the same time the analysis shows sales broke another record, with only 6.1% of capital city home sales coming in below $200,000 over the 12-month period.

The proportion of homes sold for between $200,000 and $400,000 also fell to 31.8%, the lowest mark since the 12 months to October 2001.

Sydney and Melbourne easily led the way in terms of sales worth at least $1 million.

In Sydney a record 34% of houses and 10.3% of units sold for more than $1million, while in Melbourne 16.5% of houses and 5.1% of units sold for more than $1 million.

Outside of those two markets, Perth had the next best proportion of houses sold for over $1 million with 10.8%, while Darwin’s 4.8% of unit sales over $1 million was the third highest in the nation.

Hobart had the lowest proportion of sales over $1 million for both homes and units, at 1.5% and 1.7% respectively.

Conversely the Tasmanian capital had the highest proportion of houses sold for less than $400,000 at 61.4%, while Canberra and Sydney had the lowest proportions at 7.8% and 8.9% respectively.

Hobart also leads the way when it comes to affordable units, with 82% selling for less than $400,000, while Sydney and Darwin were the worst with only 18.6% and 28.8% over unit sales under that mark.

CoreLogic RP Data senior research analyst Cameron Kusher said the data shows housing is becoming less affordable in capital cities and as a result people may have to deal with the issues that come with moving to regional areas.

“Housing affordability is a very individualistic issue however; the data contained here shows that housing at a lower price is becoming much harder to come by, particularly in our larger capital cities,” Kusher said.

“The result is that more people have to choose to rent or alternatively they have to move away from our capital cities or to smaller capital cities.  Of course, finding employment in smaller capital cities and regional markets can be more difficult.”

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