Property sales finally stop falling

It’s probably still too early to emphatically call it a new trend, says Kelvin Davidson, CoreLogic’s chief property economist, but further, potentially modest, sales increases over the rest of the year wouldn’t be a surprise. 

Meanwhile, average property values dropped by 0.7% in May and are down by 2.3% over the past three months and 11.6% from the peak. The upper quartile continues to lead the downturn, with values down -14% from peak, compared to -10.9% and -8.8% falls across the mid and lower quartiles respectively.

“There’s always a natural lag between deals ‘on the ground’ and the trends on a measured house price index, so anecdotes about renewed confidence suggest the index will also find a floor fairly soon,” Davidson says. 

Part of the reason for that is the tightening stock of listings on the market – with new listings flow still low, but sales at the other end of the pipeline starting to rise.