National housing market cooling - volumes lead price

Makes you wonder, if housing is cooling so much when interest rates and unemployment are so low now...

Can't argue with the hard data here folks, although I'm sure some trolls will try!

It is a little remarked fact that property sales were down ~60%y/y in September 2017 (Sydney -58%y/y; Melbourne -52%, Rest of Australia -64%). The below chart uses 3m YoY percentage changes to smooth the volatility in the monthly numbers: on that basis, transactions are down ~40% nationwide.



(Source: UBS, CoreLogic)


Breaking this down across regions: Sydney is down 33% (6ppts of the 40ppt nationwide decline); Melbourne is down 39% (8ppts of the 40ppt nationwide decline); and the rest of Australia is down 41%y/y (25ppts of the 40ppts nationwide decline). As you can see from the below chart, volume trends have lead price trends over the past few years, so the sharp decline of transactions volumes likely presages a sharp slowing of house prices.

 

Not sure where you are getting your numbers from but they are clearly different to corelogics' latest report:

Monthly Housing & Economic Chart Pack | CoreLogic

The recent declining trend in settled house and unit sales has starting to level in the smaller capital cities with sales continuing to decline in the larger cities

• It is estimated that there were 299,452 settled sales of capital city dwellings over the 12 months to September 2017 with the number of settled sales -5.0% lower over the year.
• Both house (-3.9%) and unit (-7.2%) sales have fallen over the past year.
• Transaction volumes have fallen over the past year in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra but are higher across the remaining capital cities.

 

Thanks @paulF for the link, i didn't actually know CoreLogic put out a pack like that.

Lots of great stuff, but slide 17, 12 month change in listings is very interesting to me. Tasmania leading the contraction, but of the larger markets its WA with a 13% drop followed by VIC with 10%, but interestingly the contraction in VIC is coming from the regions and not Melbourne. Leading the increase is Sydney, up 16.2%.

 

Looking over all your threads your nick should be DoomtownGloom.

 

UBS have been putting out all kinds of random stuff lately.

Here's another one they put out today, showing 'people growth' up by about 800,000 over the past year.

Clearly a bogus methodology due to double-counting, though it does suggest population growth is accelerating.

 

Paul the discrepancy is due to your report using annual data ,while the data from above from UBS uses 3m YoY.

Looks even more acute without the smoothing.

 

Just data Leo!

If you disagree with data / analysis - just do the opposite!

 

It IS accelerating.

Yep tUBS have been more active with the gloomy stuff since they went public calling the TOP of the housing a few months ago.

 

Here's what CoreLogic think about UBS 3m/YOY methodology:

 

too lazy to argue eventhough I once worked in BI arena and have worked with all these smoothing averages, regression analysis they're not meant to be applicable in all scenarios esp in this instance with so many variables.

Anyway - guess the charts didn't apply to this house and ppl who rocked up to this house in mill park with a suburb median price of 600kish

 

You should have seen some of the data being put out pre Sydney/Melbourne boom. Would turn most people off from buying

 

Insane!!
1100odd sqm, it's on two blocks, but still huge money. I really am so interested to see what the near future holds holds for property/property prices. (Next 1-3 years)

 

Any data that was particularly memorable / proved to be wrong?

 

This is quite a few years ago now but I remember reading some reports roughly saying how market sentiment was at an all time low, the Australian economy was stagnant and property prices were in for flat times still to come. We saw great value again in Sydney and Melbourne about 2013 and went on a shopping spree while most ppl were afraid. Sydney started its boom not long after.

Just like Brisbane we once again saw value in mid 2014 and bought some great deals while the overall qld stats wasn't spectacular but certain pockets/markets have definitely outperformed over the last few years. Personally I've never followed data/ economic pundits much since i started this game. We value on the ground info and overall calculated risk management alot more. That's seems to work for us. Each to their own i guess.

 

Auction clearance rates slide another 12% YoY..

THis is SPRING?

Sydney housing continues to cool as auction clearance rates slide

 

Aussies holding onto their homes for longer - realestate.com.au