Canberra gears up for Autumn property market

The change in season anticipates cooler weather, falling leaves and one of the biggest auction weekends in the real estate calendar. The property market in January generally starts off slowly as property hunters are still recovering from holidays, returning to work and paying off Christmas debt, by late February/early March the real estate market really begins to make strides for the year. The reason for this, is many people decide over the Christmas period whether to upsize, down-size or just move to a more central location to their needs and they put the wheels in motion to sell and start looking for their next real estate venture.

Unlike Sydney and Melbourne, Canberra has reaped the benefit of six consecutive years of house price growth and it is predicted that 2019 will be no different. Job growth remains strong, unemployment is the lowest of any state or territory and new migration to the capital is continuing to increase. Additionally, with high household incomes, the dwelling price-to-income ratio remains at a healthy 5.0. Other factors which could have a positive impact on the property market is if a potential change of government occurs, public service numbers historically increase, attracting more buyers to Canberra. Op top of this, a rare 7,900 sq m block on the prestigious street of Mugga Way in Red Hill on the market after 18 years to sell for more than $10 million.

Being one of only two states which bucked declining national trends in 2018, our market is positioned to be a top performer this autumn, especially with Super Saturday (Saturday prior to Easter) historically being the first big auction weekend of the calendar year. Buyers have more control than what they have had in recent years, with trends showing more properties that auctions are starting to favour buyers and are being sold by negotiation after auction or within weeks following auction day.

If you’re looking at stepping into the property market over the next few months, being prepared is key. That means being auction ready, knowing the area and finding relative properties and what they sold for and of course crunching the numbers on your potential home loan.

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