LAST year marked the first fall in national home values since 2008, but Mildura has continued to defy the trend.
According to CoreLogic, home values across Australia dropped 5.3 per cent in 2022, with a 1.1 per cent decrease in December alone.
Mildura’s house values, however, increased by 2.3 per cent in 2022, with a 1.8 per cent increase in the three months to December 30.
Mildura values reached their peak in March 2022, recording an increase of 22.4 per cent from the onset of COVID in March 2020.
Current values are still up from that time, sitting at an increase of 20.3 per cent, only 1 per cent below the peak.
CoreLogic Research Director Tim Lawless said although values in Mildura were down 1 per cent since the March 2022 peak, the trend had been relatively mild compared to regional Victoria, where housing values were 6 per cent lower since their peak in May.
“The quarter-to-quarter trend in Mildura dwelling values is showing some volatility, recording a subtle rise through the December quarter after dropping 1.2 per cent through the September quarter, however, the broader trend is one of stable to slightly falling values across the region,” he said.
“Internal migration trends look to have eased through the 2022, after surging through the worst of COVID, leading to less demand for housing across the regional areas of the state relative to 2020 to 2021 when a larger-than-normal number of residents were leaving the cities for regional areas, and fewer residents were leaving regional areas for the cities.”
Most capital cities recorded a decline in values in 2022, except for Adelaide (10.1 per cent), Darwin (4.3 per cent) and Perth (3.6 per cent), which recorded increases.
Melbourne home values recorded a decline of 8.1 per cent and regional Victoria recorded a decline of 1.3 per cent.
The median house value in Mildura ($403,342) is still below the regional median of $565,942.
“Housing values across the region remain relatively affordable, especially compared with Melbourne and the larger regional centres and coastal markets,” Mr Lawless said.
“With a median dwelling value of just $403,340, Mildura home values are almost $163,000 lower than the median across regional Victoria more broadly, and almost $350,000 lower relative to Melbourne’s median.”
CoreLogic said the 12 months to December marked the largest national calendar year decline since 2008, when values were down 6.4 per cent amid the Global Financial Crisis and successive interest rate rises.
The fall however, hasn’t seen national values return to their pre-COVID levels, after home values increased nationally by 28.9 per cent.
“Our daily index series saw national home values peak on May 7, shortly after the cash rate moved off emergency lows,” Mr Lawless said.
“Since then, CoreLogic’s national index has fallen -8.2 per cent, following a dramatic 28.9 per cent rise in values through the upswing.”
CoreLogic said across the combined capital cities, dwelling values remained 11.7 per cent above where they were at the onset of COVID, while values across the combined regional markets are still up 32.2 per cent.
“Melbourne is the only capital city where the current downwards trend is getting close to wiping out the entirety of COVID gains, with dwelling values only 1.5 per cent above March 2020 levels,” Mr Lawless said.
“The relatively small difference between March 2020 and December 2022 levels can be attributed to a number of factors, including a larger drop in values during the early phase of COVID, a milder upswing through the growth cycle and the -8.3 per cent drop since values peaked in February.”
