Queensland leads Australia’s property pack with almost 51,500 properties settling through the first quarter of 2022 in the Sunshine State, narrowly ahead of Victoria, according to new sales data from property settlement platform PEXA.
It is the third consecutive quarter more properties have settled in Queensland than any other state, a trend PEXA’s head of research, Mike Gill, said was unprecedented and aligns with near 20-year high levels of interstate migration to the state.
However, NSW led the way when measured by value of properties sold across the residential and commercial property sectors at an aggregate $62 billion, well ahead of Victoria on $51 billion and Queensland, where $39 billion of properties were sold.
Overall, property settlement numbers across NSW, Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia were on par with the March 2021 quarter, but there was a substantial increase in aggregate property values, with the sharpest rise of 35 per cent in Victoria.
In a significant buyer shift, urban areas performed much stronger than regional locations in terms of sales volumes. The trend was most evident in Victoria where Melbourne sales volumes were up 7 per cent compared with a regional decline of 12 per cent.
“The evidence suggests that buyers want to be closer to jobs,” Mr Gill said.
He said Queensland sales were being propelled by residents of Sydney and Melbourne moving north for cheaper dwellings and a change in lifestyle.
“This is a very recent phenomenon,” he said. “Pre-pandemic, Queensland really never benefited from the growth in the property market that Sydney and Melbourne did, so we saw property prices flat-lining for a number of years.
“That affordability gap really did grow and, of course, Queensland was very successful in limiting and restricting the spread of COVID compared with other states. Its property market benefited from that.
“Even though prices have risen steeply, there is still a big gap between median prices in Brisbane versus Sydney and Melbourne. It is a very attractive proposition from that perspective.”
Source: Queensland leads nation in property sales surge, Martin Kelly for The Australian Financial Review