House prices across Australia remain steady in January and Melbourne becomes 'buyers' market'

ABC NEWS (Australia)

House and unit prices grew in regional Australia in January and fell across the combined capital cities. Adelaide recorded the largest jump in value, followed by Darwin, while prices fell the most in Melbourne and Canberra.

Transcript

00:00Good news or bad news, depending on whether you're buying or selling. Of course, this

00:06data is from January and shows that across all our capital cities, there's been a drop

00:11in value of about 0.2%, but in the regions, values have grown 0.4%. To rattle off a couple

00:18of numbers from capital cities, Sydney's down 0.4%, Melbourne down 0.6% and Canberra is

00:24down 0.5%, but all the other capital cities are up. Adelaide is up 0.7%, followed by

00:31Perth, Darwin and Brisbane, and Hobart prices have remained flat over January. Darwin's

00:38a bit of an interesting case too, in the three months to January, prices there have risen

00:421.7%, which is quite high for Darwin, and that's just behind Adelaide, which has seen

00:48a real surge in prices, up 1.8% for the three months to January. This is all quite good

00:53news for first home buyers, especially in Melbourne, where prices in the year to February

00:592025 have actually dropped 3.3%, and there's a lot on the market in Melbourne right now

01:05and in Hobart, so it's created a buyer's market for first home buyers.

01:09Rachel, what effect is the Bank of Mum and Dad having on the market?

01:14New data from Digital Finance Analytics, which runs this rolling survey of 52,000 Australians

01:20has shown just how much of an effect the Bank of Mum and Dad is having on the market.

01:26That survey showed that in 2024, for the whole year, 60% of respondents relied on their parents

01:34to get into the market for the first time. Of those people, 80% relied on mum and dad,

01:39but 12% actually relied on their grandparents, and this is quite a new trend that's coming

01:44through of first home buyers leaning on their grandparents to get a deposit, to get a home

01:49deposit, rather than just their parents. About five or ten years ago, those figures

01:54were at zero. There was really no one asking their grandparents for money. Last year, it

01:57was 12%, which just goes to show this generational shift in value and money in the people who

02:05are trying to get into the market and the access that they have to that cash.

02:10Martin North is from Digital Finance Analytics and had a bit to say about that.

02:15This is laying the seed for a long-term problem. The reason that most parents have money to

02:20hand down is because they are sitting in property that's gone up in value. In fact, it's the

02:25accelerated growth in property over a generation or two that has given them the wealth to enable

02:30them to pass it down to the next generation, which means that it's perpetuating a process.

02:36That process will continue for as long as home prices continue to drive significantly

02:41higher relative to the cost of living or to incomes. And secondly, it puts a bigger

02:46wedge between those who have and those who haven't.

02:49Those stats also showed that last year, the amount that first home buyers were borrowing

02:53from the family bank was $112,000, up from $108,000 the year before. But in Sydney, that

02:59figure was $212,000, which really goes to show just how much of an advantage first home

03:05buyers have when they can rely on their family.

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