The month in review: Canberra
By Herron Todd White
December, 2009
Canberra’s residential property market continued to
perform strongly throughout 2009 with strengthening
property prices and increasing rents. Established house
prices saw a 7.8% increase in value between September
2008 and September 2009 - the third best performing
city in Australia. Factors that contributed to the increase
in home prices were lower interest rates and an increase
in the first home buyers grant. These initiatives, brought
on by the Australian government, were due to the global
financial crisis, in an attempt to stimulate the economy.
In comparison to the beginning of 2009, were we saw a
general feeling of caution due to the economic climate,
Canberra’s residential property market has gone from
strength to strength. In the last few months the top
end residential market has seen some great results with
record sales recently recorded in the suburbs of Farrer (for
$1.412 million), Narrabundah ($1.375 million, which broke
the previous record by $339,000) and Watson ($865,000).
These high sales were backed up with the median house
price increasing by $25,000 from December 2008 to
September 2009. Units also saw an increase of $10,000
over the same period.
New data also shows Canberra has some of the strongest
rental growth in Australia. The median rent on a house in
Griffith increased from $780 a week last year to $1100 a
week this year, a jump of 41%. House rents in Farrer have
gone up 38.3% to $560 a week, while homes in Deakin
fetch a median of $725 a week, a 29.5% increase. While
rents on units in ACT haven’t performed as well as they
did in the rest of the nation we still saw an increase of
between 5 – 10 per cent. This solid rental growth can
be attributed to the transient population of students,
defence force and government workers continuing to
drive the rental market.
On the whole, the Canberra residential property market
has shown a considerable increase in value, particularly
in the latter months of 2009. Both houses and units saw
a solid increase, while the housing rental market in the
Inner South performed well above what was expected.
Transactions are expected to cool off over the Christmas
period and pick back up heading into the New Year.
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