- REA Insights reveals an increase in supply of housing on the market
- Search activity is down 8.4% however
- The HIA also revealed new home sales are down
The hot housing market is showing some signs of slowing down, according to the REA Group, noting an increase in the number of properties for sale that may moderate buyer demand.
The findings came from the REA Insights Housing Market Indicators Report May 2021, which uses eight key metrics to evaluate emerging trends.
They analyse behaviour from the approximately 12 million Australians who visit realestate.com.au monthly and evaluate key metrics such as search activity, email enquiry, views per listing and weekly sales of properties listed for sale on the website.
REA’s Group Director of Economic Research, Cameron Kusher, who authored the report, said he expects the next wave of buyers to smaller than earlier this year.
“An increase in the supply of new stock available for sale coupled with a drop in search activity and sales volumes has resulted in slowing demand (based on views per listing), suggesting that the next wave of potential buyers may not be as large as what we’ve seen early in 2021,“ he said.
“Preliminary weekly sales volumes are still significantly higher than they were a year ago, but they have not yet returned to their pre-Easter high and look unlikely to do so before spring.”
Cameron Kusher, REA Group
While search activity is up 46.3% compared to this time last year, it is down 8.4% from the historic highs of a few weeks ago.
Email enquiries are down for the third consecutive month, however, the story is different for investor enquiries – these are 84.2% higher than last year.
Online property seekers are increasingly interested in dwellings with more bedrooms in the capital cities, although that’s not the case for searches in regional areas where the proportion of searches for three or more bedroom properties has declined.
New home sales were also down in April, which was expected due to HomeBuilder ending, according to the Housing Industry Association (HIA).
“With HomeBuilder coming to an end, enquiry from first home buyers continues to fade while investor enquiry is increasing.
“Search volumes are significantly higher than they were a year ago. However, there has been a pullback in volumes from the historic highs reached earlier this year. “
“There was a slight rise in days on site, however, properties are selling much quicker than they were a year ago. New Homes enquiry is still very strong but predictably fell in April as HomeBuilder came to an end. Further falls over the coming months are likely.”
