Australian Property Market (Alternate Data) – May 2010 House Price Update

The Brisbane and Australian Eight Cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth, Hobart, Darwin & Canberra) House Price Index published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) catalogue 6416.0 suits my requirement to track Australian house prices as part of my retirement investing strategy.  It however has a big flaw for me by only publishing the housing data quarterly.

I’m therefore using the next best set of data that I have been able to find to help me keep my finger on the pulse a little more as this data is published monthly. This house price data is published by RPData and in particular I will monitor the Brisbane and Logan City numbers as this is my likely area for retirement.

RPData provide what are called recent median house sale prices and I’m using the latest data which is from March 2010. The Brisbane Local Government area has increased in value by $9,000 this month rising from a median price of $530,000 to $539,000. This is a rise of 1.7% month on month and a rise of 14.7% year on year. I’m amazed to still be seeing these very big increases with the Reserve Bank of Australia in the middle of an interest rate rising cycle with rates currently at 4.5%.

On the other hand Logan City has decreased in value by $6,500 this month falling from a median price of $384,000 to $377,500. This is a fall of 1.7% month on month resulting in much lower rise of 7.9% year on year.

It’s rare that an opportunity arises to compare the ABS data with that of RPData however this can be done this month as I have detailed in the table above.

Prices are still very expensive and with the exchange rate between the British Pound (GBP) and Australian Dollar (AUD) heading downwards over the past month they have become even more unaffordable for me than that of a native Australian.

As always do your own research.