Canberra house prices fall over the quarter for the first time in two years: Domain report

The Domain House Price Report, released on Thursday, showed the median house price in Canberra was $1,124,952 in the three months to March. This was an annual increase of 21.1 per cent but a quarterly decline of 0.9 per cent.

This is the first time house prices have fallen over the quarter since March 2020, when Canberra felt the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the city's property prices have only gone one way: up.

Despite the slight fall, Canberra remains the second most expensive city in which to purchase a house, behind Sydney. "What the figures show is that the peak rate of annual and quarterly growth has passed and the overall momentum in the housing market has slowed down," said Domain chief of research and economics Nicola Powell.

"It was a marginal decrease but a stark comparison to the rapid escalation of house prices over the prior seven consecutive quarters."

Gungahlin region resident Lenny Brosnahan recently sold her two-bedroom townhouse via private negotiations but said the sale came with some concerns.

"After three open homes, we weren't getting that many numbers through and when we spoke with our real estate agent, he said there had been a slight dip in the housing market and that was something I was seeing in my own research too, so I was a bit stressed," she said.

"Selling was an interesting time. We saw the market go crazy and we thought: 'Right, this is our time.'

"We were thinking about [selling] for quite some time but I think we missed that peak rush by a week or two but we were fortunate enough to get the price we wanted for the property in the end."

This time last year the property landscape had the perfect storm of economic factors and supply and demand but that dynamic had changed, Dr Powell said.

"The volume of newly advertised homes for sale over the March quarter is 2.8 per cent higher than the five-year average and is the largest volume for a March quarter since 2019. This is helping to shift market conditions as the total volume of homes for sale is improving from the recent multi-year low."