Improving Canberra a long time in the making

Canberra had the best performing housing market over the June quarter and the current strength in the Canberra market seems to have been building for some time.

According to Domain’s June Quarter House Price Report, Canberra’s median house price increased by a nation-leading 3.1% over the three-month period to $654,306.

In the year to June, Canberra’s median house price increased 4.8%, the second best annual rate of growth behind Melbourne’s 7.4%.

Signs point to Canberra’s house prices continuing to improve and there is a similar sentiment on the ground in the national capital. The strength we’re seeing started around Christmas when usually over Christmas, Canberra closes down and is a really dead market.

While a strong run over one quarter or a half a year may not fill everybody with confidence that Canberra’s market is on the improve, this year has seen the city’s market show a surprising amount of resilience.

Usually when we have a period of political uncertainty the market just stops and people just put everything on hold. But that hasn’t occurred this time around, there really seems to be lot more confidence in the market at present.

Canberra’s house market has performed well across the spectrum, with momentum first picking up at the upper end of the price range before trickling down through the market.

The performance hasn’t gone unnoticed either, as investors from outside the ACT increasingly turn their eyes to the area.

Most of the property in Canberra sits in that $500,000, $600,000 or $700,000 mark and there are good pockets of returns in all of those segments.

There’s not a lot of difference between one side of Canberra and the other, but one thing that can make a difference is school catchments. A lot of the schools in Canberra have small catchment areas and if you happen to be in one of them then you can see much better returns in terms of growth as well as rental returns.