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Simon Parker
Perth property prices should recover the ground they lost last year, and Brisbane shouldn’t be too far behind, Australian Property Monitors senior economist Andrew Wilson said.
In a generally upbeat and positive economic outlook, Dr Wilson told Real Estate Business that early indicators suggest Perth’s property market is improving rapidly, and while prices in Brisbane aren’t booming, there are signs the Queensland capital is on the comeback path.
“I think the Perth market has already turned,” Dr Wilson said.“We’re seeing a lot of forward indicators of increased buyer activity, and some slow signs of prices growth emerging."
“You’ve got to remember that we’re really only getting the data from the first couple of months of this year. We’ve still got a lag of sales data to come through to properly model what’s happened in the market place.”
“But given that Perth fell around five per cent last year, its median housing prices, I think it will still capture most of that this year.
“Brisbane has been a little slower,” he continued. “It’s still not showing any great breakout in terms of prices growth, however forward indicators of activity are still pretty solid for Brisbane.
“I’m still not sure we’ll see that five per cent gain that it lost last year, but I would be surprised if we didn’t see some reasonable gain in Brisbane by the end of the year.”
Dr Wilson’s comments come shortly after the Real Estate Institte of WA (REIWA), released on May 30, revealed that sales in the preceeding nine week period surged by 24 per cent when compared to the same period last year.
The Real Estate Institute of Queensland (REIQ) also reported recently that buyers were snapping up units priced between $250,000 and $350,000 in Queensland, with sales in this price bracket increasing 22 per cent over the March quarter.
Dr Wilson said Australians tended to be overly pessimistic about the local economy and the unemployment rate.
“We’re getting a lot of sentiment surveys that are saying the opposite to what the real data is saying,” he said. “I think we’re very lucky in this country, we have a very solid economy. Of course, some sectors are performing better than others, we don’t need to talk about the two-speed economy, that’s a truism at the moment, but I can’t see any drivers for overall increased unemployment, I think we’ll stick around those low five [per cents].
“Some of the capital cities are now moving into the four [per cent range], and when we start moving into the four [per cent range] we start to get issues with prices rising, shortage of labour and unsustainable income increases.
“I think we’re heading that way in Perth, and over the longer term, Brisbane, and even Sydney has got some good prospects for improved unemployment. So I’m optimistic about the track of employment growth.
“There are a couple of areas that aren’t performing that well, and Victoria is the main one, and we certainly have some concerns about the medium-term direction of the Victorian economy and associated unemployment down in that state.”
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