18th April 2022 / Jeremy Desmier: Market Update | 16 & 17 April 2022

The property market has taken a brief pause due to the Easter long weekend, with just 146 auctions scheduled across capital cities.

The Domain Group reports that once again, the rate of sold prior auctions has seen another rise nationally, indicating that vendors are keen to sell their properties while prices are close to peak and before interest rates rise.

Despite the increased chatter of softening price growth and of course those expected interest rate increases for the first time in a decade, the REA Group reports that property sellers across Australia remain confident about conditions.

In fact, the latest PropTrack Listings report shows that the first quarter of 2022 has been the busiest start to a year in eight years, in terms of new real estate listings. The report, released on 14 April, shows that across the capital cities the number of new properties for sale hitting the market surged by 16.2% in March compared to February, now up 8.5% year-on-year.

"This will provide some relief for buyers, who have been facing few options for much of the pandemic," Angus Moore, an economist at PropTrack and the report's author, said.

In Melbourne, there was a mammoth 15.7% increase month-on-month in new listings, marking a 5.5% increase compared to March 2021. "This capped off a strong first quarter in Melbourne's property market, representing the fastest first quarter for new listings since 2011," Mr Moore said. "This strength continued the strong listings activity witnessed during the record spring selling season last year, which followed the end of Melbourne's lockdown."

The autumn selling season is likely to be a busy one, as is often the case, but there are some headwinds down the track, Mr Moore said. "Measures of buyer demand remain strong but do look to be easing from the record levels seen in late 2021," he said.

With the Reserve Bank expected to make its first move on interest rates as soon as June, buyer appetite is starting to cool and it's weighing on price growth. "These factors mean that, while selling conditions look set to remain strong in the near-term, we are likely to see some tempering from the dominant levels experienced in late 2021 and early 2022," he said.

We hope you had a fantastic Easter long weekend, and we look forward to an increased weekend of activity prior to ANZAC Day.

Results. It's a Fletchers thing.