2022 Wrap and 2023 Outlook

Regions Lead 2022 Price Growth

Regional Australia continued to outperform the capital cities in 2022, with dwelling values rising marginally last year in the Combined Regions, compared to a 6.9% decline in the Combined Capitals.

That’s according to CoreLogic data, which shows the Combined Regions recorded a 0.1% increase in dwelling values in 2022, helped by a 2.2% increase in regional apartment markets.

Across the house markets, the Combined Regions fell just 0.2% while the Combined Capitals decreased 7.4%. The outstanding house markets last year were in South Australia: the median price for Adelaide rose 9.6%, while Regional SA increased a nation-leading 17.7%.

Other markets to record annual increases in their median house prices included Perth (4%), Darwin (4.5%), Regional WA (5.6%), Regional Tasmania (3.1%), Regional Queensland (1.2%) and Regional Northern Territory (2.7%).

Among the unit markets, those to record annual growth in median prices included Brisbane (6.7%), Adelaide (14%), Darwin (4%), Perth (1.1%) Canberra (2.6%), Regional Queensland (4.5%), Regional SA (6.7%) and Regional WA (8.3%).

Consumers Optimistic On Prices in 2023

Australian consumers collectively have shrugged off the negative forecasts of economists, with a key consumer sentiment survey showing that more people expect house prices to rise than fall in 2023.

The Westpac-Melbourne Institute House Price Expectations Index shows a sharp uplift in the public’s property price expectations, with the index surging 27.6%.

This is at odds with high-profile economists who predict “the downturn” will continue, but consumers have a better track record in forecasting property prices than bank economists.

Westpac senior economist Matthew Hassan was left baffled by the shift in consumer sentiment and claims consumers will be disappointed – but Hassan has a particularly poor record in predicting house prices.

Westpac forecast that Australian property prices would fall 10% in 2020, but prices rose. The bank predicted a 4% rise in prices in 2021, but they increased more than 25%.

Hotspotting and other specialist real estate analysts like Louis Christopher of SQM Research and Simon Pressley of Propertyology are forecasting price growth in 2023.