The Australian property market has plummeted to its weakest state in six years, with Perth values taking another dip in October, a new report shows.
The CoreLogic Hedonic Home Value Index, published on Thursday, shows Perth property prices drop by 0.8% in October, resulting in a 3.3% decline over the past year.
House prices in the western capital are faring better than units, with houses recording a 2.9% decrease in the past year compared to units, which took a hit of 5.2%.
The median dwelling price in Perth is now $451,148.
CoreLogic head of research Tim Lawless says tighter credit conditions were contributing to slower housing activity and lower values across the nation.
“The latest results take the annual decline across the national index to 3.5%, signalling the weakest macro-housing market conditions since February 2012, with our Hedonic Home Value Index reporting a 0.5% fall in dwelling values nationally in October,” Lawless says.
“With such broad-based weakness in housing market conditions, it’s clear that tighter credit availability is acting as a drag on housing demand and impacting adversely on the performance of housing values across most areas of the country.”
Perth is now the third poorest performing market in the past year, trailing Sydney which saw property values drop by 7.4% in the 12-month period and Melbourne with a decrease of 4.7%.
“Values also declined in Perth and Darwin however, the downturn in these two cities has been ongoing since mid-2014, with values falling 3.3% and 2.9% respectively over the past twelve months,” the report states.
“Regional Western Australia continued to show challenging conditions with the annual pace of decline revealing some renewed momentum with values falling by 6.5% over the past twelve months.”
The CoreLogic report found that while dwelling values had risen on an annual basis in other cities, the pace of growth had eased.
This article was originally published as Perth property prices take another dip, report shows by www.realestate.co.au and is written by Nicole Cox.