Matusik property clock
December 2024 update + a Merry Christmas to you
A short one this week.
Property clock update
Three indicators are included this post.
One is my property clock update - as at December 2024 - and the second is a table showing the key trend directions for each Australian capital.
Below the paywall is my December update showing where I have placed 26 major urban regional markets on the property clock.
You will need to upgrade your subscription to paid to access.
Click on the red button to see what you get. And thanks to those that have joined the Matusik Missive Plus tribe this year. My bank account says thank you too!
Suburban blurb
I had to chuckle the other day when the national news ran their usual spruik about dwelling price growth with the emphasis on picking suburban winners.
This time round the apartment market winner was the suburb of Dolphin Heads just north of Mackay. Over the past 12 months, this sleepy enclave enjoyed the best apartment price growth in the nation, up 53% on 2023.
Really?
A deep dive - well not really - just five minutes of work, found that there were 25 apartment sales in the suburb this year, of which 18 were units in the Whitsunday Waters Resort. I would typically exclude such sales from any analysis, as these are 35m² units which are leased back to the operator. It is more like a commercial transaction rather than a residential one.
They are not what most would think of as apartments.
So when excluding such, there were just seven (7) true apartment sales in the suburb this year. These, on average, were 133m² in size and achieved, a median resale value of $425,000 during 2024.
It is important to compare like with like when it comes to apartment resales and the best way to do that - when looking at the collective market - is to look at the price on a rate per square metre basis.
Over the past twelve months, these seven sales achieved on average $3,200/m².
During 2023 there were nine (9) comparable apartment sales (plus another 16 sales in the Whitsunday Waters Resort) and these nine sales - whilst sold collectively for a median value of $319,000, average just, on average, $3,100/m².
That is because more smaller apartments were in the sale mix in 2023 when compared to 2024.
So based on the price per square metre, apartment values - in broad terms - lifted by 3% in Dolphin Heads.
And when I looked at the resales by individual apartment, the average gain between sales was a low 4.4% per annum.
These are a far cry from 53%!
For mine, such suburban commentary isn’t worth much.
The data is never questioned. Headline findings are blindly regurgitated.
I know about this topic because I was asked to comment. Not surprisingly I was not quoted as my reply to the journo was that ‘the information is wrong and if you ask me, the real story here is that this stuff is just BS’.
How to win friends and influence people!
Also there rarely is a quantum of sales that makes suburban sales result viable. You need thousands of sales to clean out the noise.
That is why I only use median (or average) price points for large areas like a capital city or regional town and only then as a broad indicator.
Yet many - too many still - ask me to pick suburban winners.
And as a final note, Australia’s best house price growth suburb - up 38% this year - in this same study was Beachlands, a suburb in Geraldton, north of Perth in Western Australia.
Hmmm.
And when I cleaned out the out of line sales - wrong product, mismatched land sizes, divorces, internal transfers etc. - the annual change was just 10%. $360,000 in 2023 versus $397,500 in 2024.
Not bad but not 38%.
Merry Christmas
That’s enough from me for this year.
This is the 84th post for 2024. So you have earn’t a break!
Have a great Christmas and a happy New Year.
The Missive will be back at you on the 14th January.