With so much hype in the housing market we thought we would dive into the "REA Insights, Housing Market Indicators Report April 2021" and pull out some of the key things we found interesting.
The monthly report combines eight key metrics to provide an up-to-date view of the property market and emerging trends. The report analyses consumer behaviour in real time by extracting property market insights from the 12 million Australians who visit realestate.com.au each month.
The overall picture is strong and 2021 doesn't look to be slowing down. Views per listing are at record highs and days on site at record lows. The most enquired property type was house and land which has seen a huge surge as people are looking for more space.
Our Key Take Away Metrics
Buyer search volumes on realestate.com.au have increased by 62.7% compared to 12 months ago, driven in part by the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions in March 2020.
Growth in ‘Buy’ searches has been particularly strong in the Australian Capital Territory, where demand has been buoyed by growth in public sector employment.
While volumes are up year-on-year, weekly searches have been trending downwards since reaching peak levels at the end of February. The largest weekly decline occurred in the last week of March, in line with the start of the Easter school holidays.
Houses accounted for 63.5% of the email enquiries sent to residential agents in March 2021, unchanged from February. Units were likewise relatively steady over the month, accounting for 26.2% of email enquiries.
After peaking in June 2020 with the launch of the HomeBuilder package, the proportion of email enquiries for land declined over the second half of the year. Land enquiry has since stabilised at 10.3%.
Compared to last year demand for houses and land has surged, while demand for units (as a proportion of enquiry) has declined.
The average number of days properties are listed for sale on realestate.com.au hit record lows in every state in March 2021.
The average days on the realestate.com.au site was 48 in March 2021, down from an average of 71 days in June 2020. Properties sold the fastest in the Australian Capital Territory (25 days), New South Wales (27 days) and Victoria (30 days) over March.
Properties in Western Australia and the Northern Territory typically took the longest time to sell, averaging 71 and 59 days on site respectively. Despite this, Western Australia and Northern Territory have seen the largest falls in average time on site, down 28 and 14 days respectively.
Between March 2020 and March 2021 there has been a significant drop in searches to buy sub-$500,000 properties, both in capital cities and regional areas. The $500,000 to $750,000 category remains the most popular price filter, though searches at this level have fallen substantially below the proportion seen over the same time last year.
Buyers looking to purchase in regional areas are searching for more affordable properties, with 57% of all searches in the sub-$750,000 range, compared with just 35.7% in capital cities.
The low cost of debt and subsequent price rises have driven an increase in searches for properties in the $1 million-plus range which accounted for 42.3% of the share of searches over the past 12 months, up from 36.2% in the year prior.
Properties in the $1 million to $1.5 million range saw the largest growth, both in capital cities and the regions.
Three-bedroom dwellings remain the most popular with buyers and have witnessed an increase in the share of searches over the past 12 months.
One-bedroom dwellings, in contrast, have seen a slight decrease in demand, particularly in capital city areas where their share of searches has fallen. The falling preference for one-bedders was less pronounced in regional areas.
We hope you found this insightful and if you would like to discuss anything we would love to hear your thoughts and perspective on the housing market.
If you would like to read the full report then you can find it HERE