Yikes, somebody get out the Cyndi Lauper CD, because – wait for it – time after time Sydney’s property prices just keep falling.

The once fiscally impregnable wall of Victorian terraces has dipped for a third straight month, the number crunchers are saying. CoreLogic reckons they’ve dropped by 0.2% in April, while PropTrack says home prices fell 0.1% in Australia’s biggest city last month.

The CoreLogic Home Value Index of national home prices rose by 0.6% in April, the slowest monthly gain in 18 months, as the market sours on the threat of rising rates, a gaggle of sellers and anxious, somewhat faltering demand.

Top-tier home prices by value – the top 25% – fell by 0.6% in Sydney and 0.4% in Melbourne in April, CoreLogic notes, while national capital city home prices lifted 0.3% and the happy exodus to the country saw regional prices up 1.4%

Across them regions, home prices rose by the most in the territoire of Stockhead editor Peter Farquhar – last seen somewhere around South East Tasmania – up 4%, followed by East Brisbane – play area of Stockhead’s more ruthless investigative writer Nadine McGrath (up 3.1%). The Queensland Outback and Shepparton, Victoria -not the one near Dubbo – were both up 3%, but a bit of a blindspot for our editorial team.

On the flipside, home values fell 1.1% in Sydney’s Inner West where Stockhead’s me and Angela Habashy dine when there’s a free moment which is never ever.

While Sydney City and the Inner South and the Northern Beaches dropped by 1%.

Sydney’s property market has been dawdling for a while now, with the median house price of $1.2 million even a lot to ask Sydney’s bulging population of moneybags.

 

Meanwhile, according to the PropTrack Home Price Index released today, Australian home prices rose just 0.13% nationally, with PropTrack economist and report author Paul Ryan saying values were hit by higher than expected inflation which has in turn put pressure on the RBA to raise official interest rates.

The report found that home prices nationally grew at the slowest pace since May 2020.

With home values going off the boil, the index confirmed sales were just flat as from Perth to Bris Vegas in April, while home prices in Sydney and Hobart have fallen for the first time since the pandemic was but a random unmasked sneeze on an inner Melbourne tram.

Hobart’s market dropped 0.44 per cent, marking the first backward step for the Hobartians since early 2018.