Canberra’s home values increased by the second smallest amount of all capital cities over the past financial year, new data shows.
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The RP Data-Rismark home value index, issued on Tuesday, shows Canberra home values increased by 2.9 per cent over the year.
This was just higher than Hobart with 2.5 per cent growth and the same as Adelaide, but lower than the growth in all other capital cities.
Sydney registered a value growth of 15.4 per cent, Melbourne 9.4 per cent and Brisbane 7 per cent.
The territory’s increase in value was 7 per cent less than the cities' combined growth of 10.1 per cent.
The index shows Canberra recorded an increase over June of just 0.5 per cent and was behind Sydney (1.7 per cent), Melbourne (1.8 per cent), Brisbane (1.3 per cent) and Perth (1.2 per cent).
House values in the territory increased by 0.6 per cent and unit values fell by 0.6 per cent.
Canberra’s rental yield remains relatively strong in relation to the other capital cities with 4.2 per cent for houses and 5 per cent for units.
RP Data senior research analyst Cameron Kusher said the Canberra market had experienced moderate growth over the past year but there had been signs of weakening in the past three months.
“I think that’s not really unexpected following on from the budget and we’ll probably see more of that over the coming months,” he said.
“Obviously that’s a reflection of the weakening consumer confidence that we’re seeing right across the board but also the likely impact of job losses in the Canberra housing market and what that will do to it.”
Mr Kusher said Canberra homes would likely record low growth or slight falls in value over the rest of the year depending on how quickly the outcomes of the budget started to impact the market.
“I certainly think confidence-wise people are not going to be overly confident going and purchasing Canberra property at the moment.”
He said nationally the market was experiencing a slowing in growth similar to Canberra but not to the same magnitude.
Mr Kusher said home values grew by 3.3 per cent in the first six months of 2013 and had grown 3 per cent over the same time period this year.
But he said it was unlikely the carried over momentum would continue for the remainder of the year because of falling consumer confidence.
“We’ve seen a big downwards trend in confidence recently and if people aren’t overly confident about the economy they’re going to be less inclined to go and buy a property,” Mr Kusher said.
