Distressed Sales Activity Falls Again

Key Points

 National residential property listings fell in January by 5.8% to 215,144 dwellings from
228,415 recorded in December
 Nationally, new listings (Less than 30 days) fell by over 19.6% in January, with 42,409
new property listings added onto the market.
 Listings greater than 180 days old rose by 1.3% to over 58,899 dwellings.
 National combined dwelling asking prices fell 0.1% over the month.
 Distressed property listings fell by 3.0%.

Figures released today by SQM Research reveal national residential property listings fell again over January by 5.8% to 215,155 properties, from 228,415 recorded in December, 2022.

Sydney, recorded a decline in listings of 7.9%. Canberra and Melbourne also recorded sharp declines of 7.1% and 8.3% respectively. Only Hobart recorded a rise for the month of 0.3%.

On a 12 month basis, residential property listings rose by 7.1%, driven by a 13.6% rise in Brisbane. Sydney and Melbourne rises were more muted – a surprising result given the current housing downturn which commenced in the March Quarter of 2022.

Louis Christopher, Managing Director of SQM Research said:

“The January holiday period is traditionally a quiet time for listings so it is no surprise we recorded a fall in activity over this month. However, attention should be given to the new listing counts, whereby there has been a 13.8% fall in new listing activity compared to this time, last year. Most property owners believe it is a bad time mot sell right now and so are holding back, waiting for a housing market recovery. There are very few forced sellers out there as our distressed listings index reveals, which indicates, thus far, a market under no great stress.

This is one of the reasons why I am a little more optimistic than my peers that, provided the cash rate does peak below 4%, the market will bottom and start to recover from middle of this year.”

Distressed Listings stabilise

As part of today’s release SQM Research notes that as of 1 February 2023, there were 6,018 residential properties nationwide selling under distressed conditions. This has fallen from 6,201 distressed listings recorded in December 2022. The fall in distressed selling activity was driven largely by falls recorded in Queensland and Western Australia. NSW recorded a minor fall of 0.4%, however distressed listings activity has surged in NSW (up by 49.6%) compared to the same period last year.

Asking Prices Fall Marginally

Over the month to 31 January 2023, national asking prices fell by 0.1% for combined dwellings. Capital city asking prices fell by 1.2% over the same period. This far in this downturn, asking prices have moved very little compared with actual prices. This would explain the large fall in volumes and clearance rates given the lower levels of agreement between buyers and sellers.