Australia’s house price 18.5% growth in spite of lockdowns

If you were expecting house prices to fall off as a result of the lockdowns affecting almost every state in Australia, you could be wrong. NAB has predicted that property values will rise by 18.5 per cent in 2021, and this number is not showing any signs of going down in light of the lockdowns.

Government income support, increase in the number of vaccine rollout and familiarity with lockdowns have helped households and property investors stay on top of the game and avoid major financial or housing distress so far, economists say.

With Sydney entering its eighth week of lockdown including the rest of NSW this week, there are concerns that these continuous lockdowns will negatively affect housing market and household financial situations. Surprisingly, there are very few signs of housing distress when compared to last year. Loan deferrals have decreased as compared to first lockdown, price discounting is minimal and there is a relatively low number of distressed sales.

NAB senior economist Gareth Spence said that house prices have held up pretty well even through some of the more recent lockdowns. He added, if there are some fluctuations in property values in the next month or two, he’s pretty optimistic that they will bounce back.