September Quarter 2024

Key Insights

• The national housing market continues to be severely impacted by high costs, elevated demand and a low supply profile which are collectively contributing to the national UDIA Housing Index (UHI) recording a below average level of performance.
• The UDIA Housing Index for all of Australia weakened by 3.2% in the September quarter to reach 93.12 points which is the weakest reading since the December Quarter 2020 (on seasonally adjusted terms).
• The current UHI reading is 5% below the long run national average and 14% below the peak achieved in June 2021.
• The UDIA Housing Demand Sub-Index decreased by 5.3% in the September Quarter to 120 points which is still 19% higher than the long run average.
• The UDIA Housing Demand Sub-index’s performance remains underpinned by the maintenance of historically high rates of population growth, with the slight weakening in the Sub-Index related to a modest easing of national rental vacancy rates across the September quarter.
• The UDIA Housing Supply Sub-Index continues to languish at historically low levels of activity with an index reading of 91 points which is 12% below the long run average and 21% below peak performance.
• Weighing negatively on the UDIA Housing Supply Sub-Index is the on-going softness of dwelling approvals and dwelling commencements (currently 14% & 21% lower than the long run average respectively) and the ongoing paucity of rental listings
• The UDIA Housing Costs Sub-Index recorded a series high level of 157.1 points in the September Quarter, increasing 2.8% from the June Quarter, which reflects a 49% increase over the last two years. There was a 2.2% growth over the quarter of input costs to housing construction which represents the strongest quarterly growth in this metric since December 2022.

The Interactive UDIA Housing Index (UHI) & UDIA Housing Dashboard

Latest data refresh: 20 December 2024

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