National home prices have fallen over the past quarter following an improvement in supply, declining affordability and weaker market conditions.
Yet despite this, a number of regions are still facing price increases.
New data from PropTrack revealed that home prices fell by 0.1 per cent in January, marking the second consecutive month of decline after a 0.2 per cent decrease in December.
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National home prices are now 0.3 per cent lower than October 2024 levels.
Across the capital cities, prices have decreased by 0.7 per cent over the past quarter, while combined regional areas have experienced a 0.6 per cent rise during the same period.
![Supplied Editorial Aerial image of Adelaide CBD skyline. Picture: Supplied by Colliers](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1280 720"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Several areas across SA continue to record value growth, despite the market cooling somewhat. Picture: Supplied by Colliers
In South Australia, home prices in regional and metro areas both rose. However, regional SA saw larger gains of 3 per cent compared to Adelaide’s increase of 0.6 per cent since October 2024.
Contrary to national trends, there are also areas continuing to perform strongly in South Australia.
The peloton ride through Barossa Valley during stage two of the Tour Down Under cycling race. Photo: Brenton Edwards / AFP)
Barossa – Yorke – Mid North, South Australia – South East and Adelaide – Central and Hills recorded the largest quarterly growth in home prices among all SA4 regions in South Australia.
Prices were respectively 3.5 per cent, 3.2 per cent and 1.2 per cent higher in January compared to three months prior.
Throughout 2024, the total number of properties on market rose by 5.7 per cent to December, giving buyers more choice and bargaining power.
Holiday-makers Joanne Boquin, Sebastian, George and James enjoy Moonta Bay – one of the state’s most popular regional holiday hotspots – on the Yorke Peninsula. Picture: Tom Huntley
Additionally, wage growth has lagged behind home price increases over the past few years. Combined with higher interest rates, these factors have contributed to the recent decline in homes prices.
However, with interest rate cuts expected in the near future, the falls over the past few months are likely to reverse.
PropTrack economic analyst Megan Lieu. Supplied
It is anticipated that prices will start to rise once again as borrowing capacities improve.
Although, given that housing affordability remains strained and is currently hovering at its lowest historical level, it is unlikely that prices will increase as significantly as they have during previous periods of interest rate reductions.
Megan Lieu is REA Group’s economic analyst
