Forrestfield 
The Australian housing market is still trending upwards, with sales and prices both on the rise in most parts of the country in early 2024.
We’ve pulled together some of the statistics from the first quarter of the year.
Australian property market updates
According to CoreLogic’s latest figures, the national Home Value Index (HVI) has continued to rise since January 2023, hitting record after record along the way and rising by 10.2 per cent since January 2022.
Month on month, every capital city except Darwin and Melbourne demonstrated positive growth in March:
• Sydney: 0.3 per cent
• Melbourne: 0.0 per cent
• Brisbane: 1.1 per cent
• Adelaide: 1.4 per cent
• Perth: 1.9 per cent
• Hobart: 0.2 per cent
• Darwin: -0.2 per cent
• Canberra: 0.4 per cent
Year on year, growth figures look like this:
• Sydney: 9.6 per cent
• Melbourne: 3.2 per cent
• Brisbane: 15.9 per cent
• Adelaide: 13.3 per cent
• Perth: 19.8 per cent
• Hobart: 0.3 per cent
• Darwin: 0.5 per cent
• Canberra: 1.9 per cent
This puts the combined growth of the capitals at 9.7 per cent. Meanwhile, the combined growth of the regions at 6.0 per cent and the nation’s growth reached 8.8 per cent over the last twelve months.
Perth was once again the strongest performer in March. The city now has a median house price of $703,502. Brisbane and Adelaide were also standouts in terms of price growth.
Sydney remains the most expensive city in Australia, with a median house price of $1,139,375. With the Olympic Games on the horizon, Brisbane is now the second most expensive at $817,564, above Melbourne’s $778,892.
What is driving the market?
Despite the surge in property prices over the last few years and the cost-of-living crisis, which is hitting many Aussies’ hip pockets hard, people remain confident about the long term performance of property.
One of the big players supporting market activity is investment. According to the ABC, as many as four in ten people taking out mortgages in Australia at the moment were investors, a rise of 20 per cent in the last 12 months.
The ABC also indicated that high immigration, prolonged construction times and the tough rental market are contributing to a continually buoyant market.
Meanwhile, industry forecasters are speculating that the promise of interest rates dropping late in the year has some buyers diving into the market now, in anticipation of prices reaching new highs when rates change.
2024 property market forecast Australia
Despite the actions of some buyers, whether or not the Reserve Bank of Australia will reduce interest rates later in the year still remains up in the air.
Some are predicting it will be 2025 before Australia sees any drop in interest rates thanks to a still-difficult situation with inflation.
Whatever happens, it looks like the real estate market is set to remain strong for the foreseeable future.
