Housing prices in some of Australia’s most affluent suburbs have had the biggest falls from pandemic peaks. Some high-end houses and apartments have lost more than a quarter of their value.
Nationwide data shows that many of the same wealthy areas that enjoyed exuberant price runs in the years leading up to and the initial period of the pandemic have now retraced the most.
The falls are most pronounced in Australia’s three most populous cities – Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane – but also noticeable around the country, according to research compiled for Guardian Australia by property analytics company CoreLogic.
“The more expensive end of the property market tends to lead both the upswing and the downturn,” the research director at CoreLogic, Tim Lawless, said.
Housing prices across the country have fallen 8% from their pandemic peaks, according to the Reserve Bank. Similar trends are evident in comparable markets around the world. Prices in New Zealand have fallen 16% after rising interest rates cooled demand.
But many suburbs in Sydney’s east and northern beaches have seen significantly higher declines in apartment prices. The Melbourne suburbs with the biggest declines in apartment prices are clustered in the inner east and west.
Australian state and territory capitals that did not see the same heady rises in recent years as homes on the eastern seaboard, including Perth and Darwin, have recorded more modest falls in response to rising borrowing costs.
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“The areas recording the largest declines don’t necessarily indicate where mortgage stress is more elevated,” said Lawless.
“While there will be some examples of stress, in many cases these same areas arguably overshot fair value through the recent upswing and have moved through a correction.”
There are subtle differences in the suburbs that saw the largest declines in apartment and house prices. Suburbs that saw large declines in house prices were even more concentrated in more socioeconomically well-off areas, according to Guardian Australia analysis using the ABS’s index of relative socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage.
And while the biggest declines in Sydney apartment prices were clustered in beachside suburbs, the suburbs with the largest house price declines are dotted across greater Sydney. City-edge suburbs Redfern and Newtown lost around one-quarter of their value from peaks hit in late 2021 and early 2022, but so did Killcare in the north and Taren Point to the south.
In greater Melbourne, some coastal suburbs on the Mornington Peninsula recorded near 20% falls from peak pricing. The southern areas of Brisbane also experienced steep drops, with Fairfield seeing a decline of 33% from its recent high.
The data has been released at a pivotal time in the property market, where price falls moderated, and in some cases reversed, in early 2023.
There are mixed data and forecasts predicting what will happen next. On the one hand, a worsening housing shortage is contributing to rising rents and underpinning a view from some analysts that prices will start rising again due to strong demand.
But a series of rapid-fire interest rate hikes is also putting pressure on many mortgage holders, with a sizeable cohort at risk of becoming forced to sell in a scenario that would depress prices.
Known as “mortgage prisoners”, more than 15% of indebted homeowners can’t refinance because they no longer meet lending standards, Reserve Bank data shows.
Many of these households are also stuck with loans at uncompetitive interest rates and may be in homes worth less than when they bought them, due to the recent price falls.
Historically, financial stress is most evident across mortgage belts, where first home buyers and lower-income households are concentrated, according to CoreLogic.
“However, through the recent downturn, it has been the outer fringe housing markets that seem to have held their value better relative to more expensive markets,” Lawless said.
“Whether this is simply a lagged effect is yet to be seen.”
