{"id":885894,"date":"2026-09-09T17:06:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885894\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:06:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:06:17","slug":"high-end-property-hit-by-steepest-price-falls-as-affordable-end-of-australias-housing-market-proves-resilient-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/885894\/","title":{"rendered":"High-end property hit by steepest price falls as affordable end of Australia\u2019s housing market proves resilient | Housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

High-end homes are recording steep price falls, while more affordable properties are proving resilient, leaving Australians to experience the market downturn in very different ways, new data shows.<\/p>\n

Upper-quartile house values in the country\u2019s two biggest markets, Sydney and Melbourne, are now down more than 10% from their peaks, according to analysis from Cotality.<\/p>\n

The gap between upper and lower-value housing is most pronounced in Sydney and Melbourne, while Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane recorded more even \u2013 and modest \u2013 price declines over winter.<\/p>\n

Cotality\u2019s head of research, Gerard Burg, said while the market correction had become more widespread, the largest declines were concentrated among expensive homes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigher-value dwellings in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra were the first to turn and continue to record the largest cumulative falls,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Sydney, upper-quartile houses are valued at $2.1m and above. In Melbourne and Canberra, they are priced at about $1.2m and above.<\/p>\n

Sign up for the Breaking News Australia email<\/a><\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s property market is facing a rare price correction, as rising interest rates and less favourable tax settings for investors<\/a> accelerate a downturn.<\/p>\n

National dwelling values fell 3.1% over the past three months, according to Cotality, although price growth remained positive<\/a> over a 12-month period.<\/p>\n

High-end homes tend to record sharper price movements than the rest of the market, given they are widely viewed as more speculative purchases driven by sentiment.<\/p>\n

Many of those high-end homes recording steep price reductions rose spectacularly in recent years.<\/p>\n

Peter Esho, an economist and chief executive at 13x, said the property market was showing signs of stabilising because the \u201cthe budget noise has started to wash out, and buyers who were on the sidelines are seeing this as an opportunity\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cInvestors have moved away from the market, but first-time buyers and other owner-occupiers that were priced out of the market are stepping in,\u201d Esho said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a rotation of buyer types.\u201d<\/p>\n

skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | When needed<\/p>\n

Sign up to Breaking News Australia<\/p>\n

Get the most important news as it breaks<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

While government critics had largely blamed the downturn on Labor\u2019s May budget reforms, which included getting rid of negative gearing for most new investors, the changes were benefiting prospective owner-occupiers.<\/p>\n

Buying activity remained robust at lower price ranges, especially when properties were below the caps that allow a first home buyer to access the government\u2019s first home buyer 5% deposit scheme.<\/p>\n

The cap in Sydney is $1.5m, while first homeowners can use the low deposit scheme to access homes worth up to $950,000 in Melbourne and $1m in Brisbane.<\/p>\n

House values in Sydney\u2019s and Melbourne\u2019s lower quartiles were down less than 6% and 4%, respectively, from their peaks.<\/p>\n

While the broader property outlook was complicated by rising oil prices linked to the Iran conflict \u2013 which ultimately puts pressure on interest rates \u2013 employment levels were still robust in Australia.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe single biggest risk to the overall housing market is unemployment,\u201d Esho said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the one factor that can change it from a market correction into a systemic issue. We don\u2019t yet have unemployment rising to dangerous levels even though it has picked up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"High-end homes are recording steep price falls, while more affordable properties are proving resilient, leaving Australians to experience…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99],"class_list":["post-885894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}