Property News: Sydney’s New Housing Boom – Market Return Quicker Than Expected

As data from the turn of the new year becomes available, it appears that forecasts for a big 2020 are on track. The Sydney housing market, in particular, is staring down the barrel of a new ‘boom’, with investors and home seekers scrambling to secure sites before prices burst through the roof.

As clock hands rolled across midnight in the morning of January 1 2020, a standard Sydney free-standing home was valued at $974,000, according to CoreLogic. For units, the value was pitted at $746,000. This was extremely good news those who had negatively experienced the vicissitude of property prices through the previous two years.

In July 2017, a standard Sydney free-standing home held a median house price of $1.06 million. Two years later, it recorded $865,000.

The middle of 2019, however, saw a turn of events resulting from numerous factors. Namely as catalysts were the removal of uncertainty around taxation reforms following the Liberal Federal election win and the easing of loan serviceability tests, which have both fed renewed confidence into a market that needed it.

Fuelled with self-assurance by this rapid turn-around, property experts are now predicting an on-average 10% jump across greater Sydney, with some of the more popular destinations set to go even higher.

“We’re expecting a big first six months and in-fact it’s going to be very interesting to see the first quarter results.” NSW State Manager at Development Ready Will Pickering has said.

“There’s a lot of new stock coming online as investors and landholders look to capitalise on the new market confidence, and there’s a lot of developers in the water looking to fill out their pipeline for 2020 and beyond.”

CoreLogic's head of research, Tim Lawless, reported Sydney as the best performing capital city in the final quarter of 2019 with a 6.2% increase across dwelling values. Amongst the capitals, Sydney and Melbourne recorded the highest annual capital gain, with both cities posting a 5.3% rise in dwelling values over the year.

“The positive year-end results mask what has been a year of two distinct halves - we saw capital city dwelling values fall by 3.8% over the first six months of 2019 and then rebound by 7.0% over the second half of the year.” Mr Lawless said.

Following CoreLogic’s predictions, Sydney homes are now well placed to push past their mid-2017 peak by March this year.

"Sydney's median house value, based on the current rate of growth, will probably surpass a million dollars in February," Mr Lawless said.

While this estimate covers Sydney in a broad sense, experts are knuckling down on the particular suburbs to watch over in the coming weeks.

“There’s going to be some good growth across the board, and we’re expecting to see strong numbers in Bronte, Paddington and Allambie Heights,” Development Ready’s Will Pickering added.

“As prices push up we’re also liable to see buyers extend themselves to more affordable locations, particularly in Sydney’s west.”