rpdata.com Market Activity Index
	Industry Market Wrap
	Article: Great time for buyers to grab a coastal bargain
	Commercial: Mount Kuring-Gai lease signed
	Blog: The real deal with auction results

The rpdata.com weekly Market Activity Index has now passed its peak indicating that pre-listings activity from real estate professionals is starting to slow. Despite the modest fall in the Index, activity from real estate professionals on rpdata.com remain much higher than earlier in the year.

QBE Insurance and BIS Shrapnel released their property market forecasts this week which suggest that Sydney and Adelaide are the markets to watch. Over the next three years BIS are forecasting a 10.9% annual gain for Sydney houses and an 8.5% annual gain for Adelaide houses. It is certainly a difficult time to be a forecaster and it will be interesting to see how their predictions pan out.


Weekly Key Statistic - house and unit rents/yields
Some pressure has been released from the rental market over the last quarter as more renters decided to take advantage of low interest rates and the boost to the First Home Owners Grant. Since peaking in the March quarter, the national weekly rental rate has fallen 4.0% or $17/week.

Over the longer term, rental rates have recorded strong increases. Over the last three years the national average weekly rental rate has increased from $330 to $417, an increase of 26 percent.

Rental growth is likely to pick up again over the coming months. First home buyer demand is winding back and vacancy rates remain historically low which is likely to continue to place upwards pressure on rental rates.

The good news for renters is that more investors are flowing into the market; and more investors mean more rental stock which is desperately needed.

 

Latest National Auction Clearance Rates
Auction clearance rates remain buoyant around the country with a national weighted average of 75.3 percent over the last week. This is the 14th straight week that clearance rates have remained above 70 percent and auction volumes remain high with 1,166 held last week.

Want to know the auction results for your local area? Login to rpdata.com  and go the Auction Results panel on the top right corner of the home page.

Advertised Stock On The Market
The number of newly advertised real estate listings added to the market over the last four weeks remained fairly steady at 48,292. The total amount of advertised stock on the market has continued to fall, indicating a strong rate of absorption in the market. The total number of properties available for sale across Australia peaked in late October last year at just over 240,000, 14 percent higher than the current level of stock on market.

Want to know what is happening in your local patch? Make sure you have subscribed to rpdata's On the Market® service. Click here or phone 1300 734 318 for a free 2 week trial.

Australia’s lifestyle driven coastal markets have fared worse than other markets over the last year. Conditions are slowing improving, and now may be the best time to position in the market while prices remain low.

For those prospective buyers who have aspired to buy into one of Australia’s coastal lifestyle markets but couldn’t quite afford to do so, now may be a good time to consider your options. Housing values across some of Australia’s most popular coastal regions have shown significant falls and competition in the ‘lifestyle’ market remains relatively subdued.

It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that many of these lifestyle markets have seen the worst and are now showing some signs of improvement:

• The number of home sales across the major coastal markets has increased by 37 percent since bottoming twelve months ago.

• The time it takes to sell a home is becoming shorter across most markets and vendors are discounting their properties less (see ‘Major coastal lifestyle markets’ summary table below).

 

• The total amount of stock available for sale is gradually reducing indicating that supply is being absorbed by the heightened level of buyer activity.

The turnaround in market conditions is coming from a low base, however, and most coastal lifestyle markets still provide a wide range of opportunities. Generally prices are still lower than what they were last year and the level of negotiation to be had by the buyer is still typically higher than what they would experience in the metro areas.

Despite the strong jump in market activity, monthly sales volumes remain well below the ten year average, suggesting competition in the market is far from fierce.

While the conditions appear to be improving, the road to recovery is likely to be a slow one for many of these regions. The tourism industry has been hit hard by the Global Financial Crisis, with the Australian Bureau of Statistics reporting that takings from tourist accommodation were down 5.8% over the year to June 2009 and room occupancy rates have plunged to just 59%. Tourism Australia is forecasting that visitor arrivals will fall by about 5.5% over the second half of 2009.

Arguably Australia’s most iconic lifestyle market, the Gold Coast, provides a good case study. The median house prices is still 7.7 percent lower than last year and the median unit price is 8.4 percent lower than last year. The annual number of properties available for sale has fallen by 6 percent from 20,500 in September last year to 19,300 over the last 12 months. Houses and units are taking 68 days to sell compared with 100 and 92 days last year for houses and units respectively.

In summary, these popular coastal markets are still much more affordable than they once were and market conditions are still in favour of the buyer. For these reasons now is likely to be a good time to be buying into in the market for future growth.

Buyers are already returning, as evidenced in the Sales Volumes graph, and as the global economy continues to improve, visitor numbers will once again pick up, reinvigorating these popular lifestyle markets.

An industrial warehouse unit in a newly-completed estate has been leased in Mount Kuring-Gai, New South Wales.

The lease of Unit 15 at 22 Beaumont Rd, Mount Kuring-Gai, situated in the newly-completed third and final stage of Gateway Estate, was negotiated by agents of Industrial Parks of Australia and Camelle Real Estate.

Last weekend was another stellar week for Australia’s auction markets. The national weighted average clearance rate was 75 percent (the 14th consecutive week of national clearance rates being above 70 percent) and the total number of auctions across the country is still well above average: there were 1,310 auctions held last week compared with the quarterly average of 1,097. 

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