Revealed: The suburbs that have suffered the sharpest fall in house prices since COVID-19 struck – with upmarket areas in particular danger
- Melbourne is home to five of the ten worst areas for COVID property price falls
- Sydney’s expensive North Shore, Northern Beaches, Inner West also made list
- Real estate data group CoreLogic said upmarket areas in particular danger now
Melbourne isn’t just the coronavirus capital of Australia – it’s also the epicentre of house price falls.
Half of the worst ten areas for real estate price drops are in the Victorian capital, property data group CoreLogic has revealed, with expensive suburbs in Australia’s biggest cities most at risk.
Melbourne’s inner south, which takes in bay-side St Kilda, had the dubious honour of suffering the steepest falls of 2.2 per cent between March 31, when the first COVID-19 lockdowns began, and the end of May.
Melbourne’s inner south, which takes in bay-side St Kilda (pictured), had the dubious honour of suffering the steepest house price falls
Mandurah, south of Perth, saw an identical plunge in two months.
Inner-city Melbourne and the Victorian capital’s inner-east both suffered a 1.8 per cent fall.
During the end of the last downturn between 2017 and 2019 Melbourne’s inner-east, which includes upmarket suburbs such as Kew, was Australia’s worst performing housing market.
At the time it battled Ryde, in Sydney’s north, for this sour honour, however in April and May this year, this area saw property prices increase by 2.3 per cent.
Sydney rounded out the rotten ten list for property price falls with the North Shore, Inner West and Northern Beaches all suffering 0.7 per cent drops during that same time frame.
CoreLogic’s head of research in Australia Eliza Owen said upmarket suburbs in Australia’s biggest cities were in particular danger, like they were during the last recent downturn.
‘The graphs suggest the more expensive parts of the Sydney and Melbourne dwelling markets have higher levels of volatility, and are at times a “first mover” when it comes to the direction of price change,’ she said.
Melbourne, which has seen a surge in coronavirus cases, was Australia’s worst hit city, with the outer east suffering a 1.2 per cent drop, the same decline as Perth’s south-east.
Ipswich, south-west of Brisbane, suffered a 0.8 per cent slide.
Ms Owen said the government’s coronavirus shutdowns had sparked another property market downturn.
‘The stringent government response to COVID-19 has undoubtedly placed the property market cycle at the cusp of another downswing,’ she said.
Mandurah, south of Perth, saw an identical plunge in two months (pictured, Halls Head)
Sydney rounded out the rotten ten list for property price falls with the North Shore (Luna Park in North Sydney pictured), Inner West and Northern Beaches all suffering 0.7 per cent drops
Capital city house prices fell by 0.5 per cent in May, as Sydney values declined by 0.6 per cent marking the first drop in a year.
Melbourne suffered a 0.4 per cent drop in April, the first full month of lockdowns, and an even bigger 1.1 per cent decline in May.
Ms Owen said preliminary results for June showed ‘the rate of decline has gathered some momentum through the month and would not be uniform.
‘The Australian housing market is not one market, but a collection of many,’ she said.
Ipswich (pictured), south-west of Brisbane, suffered a 0.8 per cent slide as house prices were hit by the coronavirus lockdown