Help Finding Capital City Median Price Growth

[Sydney_Steve]

Hey everyone,

I am currently trying to find a reliable median price growth over the last 5 years. Could someone please ever so slightly point me in the right direction as to where I can find these.

I have found this graph which shows price growth up to 2013 http://www.homepriceguide.com.au/default.aspx

But it doesn't seem to match up with this one http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/...ational-price-growth-predictions.html?start=1

Using those to two I have come up with

Sydney
June 2014 $812,929 +17.6%
June 2013 $690,064 +6.68%
June 2012 $646,858
June 2011 $647,657

Also looking at ABS website but struggling to sift through the data. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/6416.0Main+Features1Dec 2013?OpenDocument

Any help at all will be much appreciated. Thanks

 

[Sydney_Steve]

By the way I have done a search on the forum and didn't come up with much. Just wondering what websites you guys use to find data.

 

[Propertunity]

Easy enough to find, but what are you planning to do with the information?

Capital city growth is just each city's suburb growth added to the mix to come up with an "average". But you can't buy an "average" capital city house or unit - just an individual one in a specific suburb.

 

[Sydney_Steve]

Easy enough to find, but what are you planning to do with the information?

Capital city growth is just each city's suburb growth added to the mix to come up with an "average". But you can't buy an "average" capital city house or unit - just an individual one in a specific suburb.

I am trying to do my own research using current data to find the safest investment property using Cam McLellan process of elimination. I have been reading in the media that Brisbane (ie Zillmere) is the place to invest. I just want to follow Cam's method and see if it confirms this or shows up different/more current opportunities.

The first step is to knock out capital cities by looking at;

Growth Trends (Median Price): < 10%-15% past two consecutive years
Population Growth: > 1.2% per annum over a number of years
Unemployment Rate:

After a city has been found further checklist are performed on suburbs within the city.

 

[PHP]

That's a good method. Margaret Lomas' book also has a similar filtering process in researching areas.

 

[vaughan]

... find the safest investment property ...

What do you mean by "safe"? Serious question.

 

[Sydney_Steve]

That's a good method. Margaret Lomas' book also has a similar filtering process in researching areas.

Thanks I'll read that. I nearly have pre-approval $420K so reading books like crazy. The first property I bought I got lucky in the timing of the market ($270K 2011, $360K 2014) but really I didn't do much research other than purchase in my own backyard and look at rental yields.

 

[Sydney_Steve]

What do you mean by "safe"? Serious question.

Maybe "safest" isn't the best word. I want to eliminate properties that are going to be either high risk or low return.

 

[tpepper]

Hey everyone,

I am currently trying to find a reliable median price growth over the last 5 years. Could someone please ever so slightly point me in the right direction as to where I can find these.

I have found this graph which shows price growth up to 2013 http://www.homepriceguide.com.au/default.aspx

But it doesn't seem to match up with this one http://www.propertyobserver.com.au/...ational-price-growth-predictions.html?start=1

Using those to two I have come up with

Sydney
June 2014 $812,929 +17.6%
June 2013 $690,064 +6.68%
June 2012 $646,858
June 2011 $647,657

Also looking at ABS website but struggling to sift through the data. http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/Lookup/6416.0Main+Features1Dec 2013?OpenDocument

Any help at all will be much appreciated. Thanks

I use residex they are doing free reports at the moment

http://www.residex.com.au/free-report

type in suburb name and can get report, info in there amongst other stuff contains median capital growth rates per year.

I think you will find certain Sydney suburbs got more than 17% growth this year, average figures for city not very helpful as different suburbs perform differently

 

[SimonBuckingham]

But you can't buy an "average" capital city house or unit - just an individual one in a specific suburb.

This is a very important point. Every suburb within a city performs differently and will have a different outlook.

This renders trends in "city" median prices somewhat meaningless (or at least of limited practical use when trying to decide exactly where, when, and what to invest in).

Because they're an aggregate measure rather than a specific one, city median price trends will hide individual growth suburbs when most suburbs in a city are falling in value, and will also hide under-performing suburbs when most suburbs are going up.

It's entirely possible (fairly common in fact) to have median prices in some suburbs within a city rising in value by more than 10% at the same time that other suburbs in the same city are falling by more than 10%.

Relying on city median price trends rather than understanding what's going on at individual suburb level exposes an investor to the risk of picking the wrong area at the wrong time.

The other problem with a focus on city median price trends is that past performance is no guarantee of future performance. In fact, past performance tells you very little about what's going to happen to prices next.

As Propertunity notes, you don't buy a "city" - rather you buy a house or a unit in a suburb, at a point in time. So what's really important from a risk management and capital growth perspective is to understand what individual suburbs within a city are doing right now, and what they're projected to do moving forward.

Accurate short-term projections on suburb price movements have little to do with anecdotal evidence of infrastructure spending or population movements (which may influence prices over the longer term, but the timing and magnitude of such influence is very uncertain).

Short term price movements (talking 1-3 years here) will have much more to do with the interplay between the supply of dwellings available for sale, and the combined demand from owner occupiers and investors for those houses.

In my experience, the best approach is to focus on reading the market at an individual suburb level and to research the balance of supply and demand within a suburb, in order to inform an opinion about which suburbs are more likely to rise in value in the near term, and which are more likely to fall in the near term.

In short, it matters both WHERE you buy (i.e. which suburb), and WHEN you buy (so that you don't get caught at the top or in a falling market).

 

[Sydney_Steve]

In my experience, the best approach is to focus on reading the market at an individual suburb level and to research the balance of supply and demand within a suburb, in order to inform an opinion about which suburbs are more likely to rise in value in the near term, and which are more likely to fall in the near term.

Hey thanks the response!

I have started to look at individual suburbs now. You were right 1) its really hard to find reliable data on a whole city and 2) There are cycles within cycles.

 

[SimonBuckingham]

No problem! It's a fascinating area and the Results team and I are in the middle of running some workshops around the country where we're providing some (free) training on techniques for reading the market at an individual suburb level. I might post some details over in the Meeting Point section of the forums for those who may be interested.

Cheers,