Auction markets continue their strong run

The latest data from CoreLogic confirms that the auction markets continued their strong run last weekend, with the number of auctions recorded at the second highest level this year and clearance rates remaining above 70 per cent for the 20th successive week.

Auction activity does not appear to be slowing through the festive period, with auction numbers reaching the highest level since March earlier this year.  There were 3,411 auctions held over the past week, returning a preliminary clearance rate of 74.6 per cent, which is up from last week’s 72.3 per cent and substantially higher than the equivalent period last year (58.2 per cent). The combined capitals clearance rate has been tracking above 70 per cent consistently over the past 20 weeks, with the clearance rate higher than 75 per cent over eleven of the past twenty week’s.  The last time the combined capital city clearance rate was tracking over 70 per cent over the given period was in 2009.  Across Australia’s two largest markets in Sydney and Melbourne, clearance rates rose this week, with preliminary results showing 77.4 per cent and 80.2 per cent respectively.

Stock levels remain well below average across the hot housing markets

Nice piece from CoreLogic’s Tim Lawless. Stock levels remain well below average across the hot housing markets, but are close to record levels in Perth and Darwin.

With the spring ‘selling season’ done and dusted and Christmas rapidly approaching, it is worthwhile having a look at how stock levels have tracked over the season and year relative to previous years. One of the key facets of the housing market over the last year has been the shortage of advertised stock that has created urgency amongst buyers. This has likely been one of the primary reasons why clearance rates have been high and the average selling time has been short.

CoreLogic counts listing numbers over a rolling 28 day period, updating the results each week. The listing counts are the summation of collecting listing numbers from online sources as well as print sources. Advertised listings are matched against property records, duplicates are removed, and listings are counted. New listings (ie those listings that we have not seen advertised previously over the past six months) are counted separately, while total listings is the sum of relisted stock (ie those properties that have been advertised at least once previously over the past six months) and new listings.

The graphs below track new and total listings across the combined capital cities. They show the number of property advertisements is highly seasonal and has varied substantially from year to year. Throughout spring 2016, new listing numbers have been tracking well below the highs of 2014 and 2015, however with the summer slowdown now in full swing, the number of new listings being added to the market is tracking almost 5% higher than last year across the capital cities.

The total amount of advertised stock shows a more substantial divergence over the years. Total stock levels have actually been tracking higher than a year ago across the combined capitals region and are currently 1.4% higher than a year ago. This trend seems to fly in the face of the argument that stock levels are in short supply, driving growth in prices. However, when we drill down into individual capital city trends it becomes very clear that the very ‘hot’ markets are where the shortage of stock is most pronounced.

1-capsThe shortage of advertised stock is most pronounced in Sydney where fresh stock being added to the market has been consistently and substantially lower than the past two years. Total advertised stock levels are currently 10.2% lower than a year ago and there is approximately half the number of advertised properties in the market compared with the 2011 peak which was above 40,000.

The listings trend in Brisbane is very different. New listings being added to the market are on par with the highs of 2014 and substantially higher compared with last year and earlier periods in the cycle. Total advertised stock is higher than the past two years which is likely contributing to the softer pace of capital gains across the Brisbane housing market, as well as longer selling times and higher rates of vendor discounting compared with the larger capitals.

The weakness across the Perth housing market can be seen in a range of indicators. Dwelling values have been trending lower, rents are down almost 10% over the past year, properties are taking a long time to sell and vendors are showing large rates of discounting in order to sell their properties. The high number of total listings relative to previous years highlight that Perth is well and truly a buyer’s market. New listings are tracking higher than last year but remain well below the highs achieved when the market was much healthier in between 2012 and 2014. As buyer demand has slowed, total stock levels have trended significantly higher and are currently 14.2% higher than at the same time last year. Such a wide range of stock to choose from and little in the way of urgency amongst buyers is unlikely to create upwards pressure on prices until stock levels reduce substantially.

Capital city clearance rate remains strong

CoreLogic confirms the combined capital city preliminary clearance rate rose this week to 75.0 per cent, up from last week’s final clearance rate of 73.0 per cent. This week’s auction market results indicate that clearance rates are maintaining strength coming into summer, a trend that is very different compared with last year’s performance when auctions clearance rates were tracking in the high 50 per cent to low 60 per cent range.  The number of properties taken to auction this week fell across the capital cities, with 3,173 reported auctions, down from 3,398 last week, which was the second busiest week for auctions this year. In Melbourne and Sydney, the number of auctions held have decreased (1,410 and 1,158) while across the smaller capital cities, auction volumes have increased over the week.  Auction activity is expected to slow over the remaining weeks of December, however the strong trend in clearance rates is showing no signs of easing.

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Home Prices Up Again

The CoreLogic November Hedonic Home Value Index results out today show a rise in dwelling values across every capital city excluding Melbourne over the month. Capital city dwelling values rose by 0.2% in November as the housing growth cycle clicked over 4.5 years of growth.

Darwin was the best performing capital city: +3.7%, whilst the weakest was Perth, down -1.1%.

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The soft performance across the combined capital city reading was attributable to a 1.5% fall in the Melbourne index, while all other capital cities recorded a positive month-on-month result.

The combined regional areas of Australia showed a weaker result with house values falling by 0.2% over the month.

On an annual basis, every capital city except for Perth is now showing a positive annual trend in dwelling value growth. The highest annual growth rate is evident in Sydney and Melbourne where dwelling values are now 13.1% and 11.3% higher respectively, reflecting a steeper upwards trajectory in growth over the second half of the year. The Hobart and Canberra markets have also seen some acceleration in growth rate trends with dwelling values up 8.5%, and 8.4% respectively over the past twelve months.

Currently the national growth cycle has been in play for 4.5 years, with capital city dwelling values rising by 42.2% over the cycle to date.

Disaggregating this growth figure highlights the diversity in market conditions with Sydney and Melbourne at one end of the spectrum experiencing an increase in dwelling values over this period of 67.3% and 46.3% respectively, while at the other end of the spectrum, Perth and Darwin values have broadly declined since 2014. Perth values are 6.9% higher since the cycle commenced in June 2012, while Darwin values are 13.8% higher over this period.

It appears that higher unit supply is progressively weighing down the capital gains across Melbourne’s unit sector, with annual capital gains tracking at 3.9% for Melbourne units compared with a 12.2% annual gain in Melbourne house values. A similar trend can be seen in Brisbane, where the supply of units across key inner city regions is also high. Brisbane house values were up 4.3% over the past twelve months compared with a 0.9% fall in unit values.

Rental yields reached a new record low in November across the combined capitals index due to dwelling values continuing to rise at a faster pace than weekly rental rates.The average gross rental yield across combined capital city dwellings is now recorded at 3.2%,down from 3.5% a year ago and 4.1% five years ago.

Sydney and Melbourne share the lowest yield profile for detached housing, with an average of 2.8% in both cities, while the gross yield on Sydney units has fallen well below Melbourne’s at 3.8%.

Auction Markets Results – Second Busiest Week So Far This Year

CoreLogic says last weekend’s auction markets continue their strong run of high clearance rates after the second busiest week for auctions so far this year.

Auction volumes increased with 3,367 properties taken to auction this week.  This was the second highest number of reported auctions this year for the combined capital cities, up from 2,987 over the previous week. Despite the surge in auction numbers, market volume is still significantly lower than the corresponding week last year (3,729).  The preliminary auction clearance rate, despite the increase in volume, remains strong (76.0 per cent), up from last week’s final of 74.4 per cent and also higher than equivalent week last year (60.1 per cent). Every capital city except Perth and Canberra are showing auction numbers to be lower than a year ago, while every capital has recorded a higher clearance rate compared with last year.

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Auction Momentum Confirmed Again

CoreLogic says there were 2,950 auctions held across the combined capital cities, with week-on-week results showing an increase over the 2,897 reported capital city auctions last week. With the number of auctions tracking at the highest level since March, there has been no indication that clearance rates are starting to ease as we approach summer. However, when compared to last year, auction volumes continue to track lower with vendors still seemingly reluctant to place their properties on the market despite such strong selling conditions. There were 3,166 auctions reported over the corresponding week last year, with a clearance rate of 59.5 per cent, which is a substantially lower rate of clearance when compared to the higher rate that has remained consistent since July. This week’s preliminary clearance rate remains over 70.0 per cent (75.6 per cent), decreasing slightly over last week’s final clearance rate of 75.8 per cent.

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Returns From Property Are Varied, But Positive

CoreLogic’s latest blog post discussed property returns across the cities, including using gross rental returns. However, these are gross yields, not taking into account the debt burden and servicing costs.  The picture changes when do you.

CoreLogic’s conclusion is that investors still have headroom and total returns are picking-up outside of Sydney and Melbourne.

Sydney & Melbourne have seen much stronger total returns than other capital cities over recent years. Recent data indicates returns in Hobart & Canberra are closing in on Sydney & Melbourne thanks to higher yields & accelerating capital growth.

The CoreLogic Home Value Index was released last week and it showed that combined capital city home values rose by 7.5% over the year to October 2016.  The most interesting recent development has been the accelerating annual growth trend evident within Sydney and Melbourne.  While the change in values is important, it only tells part of the story with the total return also an important figure to focus on.

Annual change in capital city home values,
to October 2016

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While the home value index looks at changes in values, the CoreLogic Accumulation Index factors in the change in values over the year along with rental returns. As a result, the Index provides an indication of the total returns from residential property.

When you factor in gross rental returns, the total returns from residential property are actually positive across all capital cities.  This is despite values declining in both Perth and Darwin.  The total returns index also shows that Sydney and Melbourne are not quite so far out in front.  The strong value growth in these two cities is offset by record low yields.  Meanwhile, more moderate but accelerating value growth in Hobart and Canberra along with higher rental returns are resulting in total returns in these two cities closing the gap with Sydney and Melbourne.

Total returns from residential property,
12 months to October 2016

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Looking at cumulative value growth over the five years to October 2016, Sydney and Melbourne stand head and shoulders above all other capital cities.   Over the five years to October 2016 Sydney home values have increased by 62.3% and Melbourne home values are 38.1% higher.  No other capital city has recorded cumulative growth of at least 20% over the past five years.

Total change in capital city home values,
5 years to October 2016

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Total returns over the past five years indicate the property asset class has performed much better than if you just look at headline value growth.  Although Sydney and Melbourne have still recorded the strongest total returns over the past five years, returns in the other capital cities are much stronger once you factor in the rental return performance.

Total returns from residential property,
five year to October 2016

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The strong value growth in Sydney and Melbourne over recent years has been a key driver of demand from the investment segment.  Over the past year, total returns have begun to accelerate in Hobart and Canberra.  Although value growth in these two cities has not been as strong as in Sydney and Melbourne, the superior rental returns are resulting in stronger total returns.

With Sydney and Melbourne having seen much greater value growth than all other capital cities over recent years and rental returns pushing to lower level, the total returns on offer in Hobart and Canberra are likely to remain attractive for investors.  Particularly those investors looking for opportunities outside of the two largest capital cities.

Preliminary clearance rate remains strong at 77.5 per cent

CoreLogic says the combined capital city preliminary clearance rate increased this week, up from last week’s final of 73.6 per cent to 77.5 per cent, with auction volumes also showing an increasing trend over the week. There were 2,843 auctions held across the combined capital cities, up from last week’s 2,517. However, auction volumes continue to track lower than the corresponding period last year when 3,274 auctions were reported with a lower rate of clearance (62.3 per cent). The two largest auction markets, Melbourne and Sydney, continue to skew the capital city weighted average higher, with both cities consistently recording an auction clearance rate higher than 70 per cent throughout Spring, despite a substantial reduction in the number of auctions compared with last year. Late November and early December have historically shown the highest number of auctions. As the number of auctions trends higher over the coming weeks, the larger stock levels will provide a timely test of the auction markets strength.

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More On The Problem Of Home Price Indices

We need measures of residential property price inflation. They need to identify bubbles, the factors that drive them, instruments that contain them, and analyse their relation to recessions. Such measures are also needed for the System of National Accounts and may be needed as part of the measurement of owner-occupied housing in a consumer price index. So, timely, comparable, proper measurement is a prerequisite for all of this, driven by concomitant data.

House-and-ArrowRecent developments in Australia have highlighted the fact that there are issues with the metrics here. The RBA has switched from CoreLogic because they suggested this index overstated home price growth, now preferring other index providers. CoreLogic recently discussed their approach.

So the latest IMF working paper – “How to better measure hedonic residential property price indexes” makes interesting reading.

The problem of quality-mix adjustment

Critical to price index measurement is the need to compare, in successive periods, transaction prices of like-with-like representative goods and services. Price index measurement for consumer, producer, and export and import price indexes (CPI, PPI and XMPIs) largely rely on the matched-models method. The detailed specification of one or more representative brand is selected as a high-volume seller in an outlet, for example a single 330 ml. can of regular Coca Cola, and its price recorded. The outlet is then revisited in subsequent months and the price of the self-same item recorded and a geometric average of its price and those of similar such specifications in other outlets form the building blocks of a price index such as the CPI. There may be problems of temporarily missing prices, quality change, say size of can or sold as a bundled part of an offer if bought in bulk, but essentially the price of like is compared with like every month. RPPIs are much harder to measure.

First, there are no transaction prices every month/quarter on the same property. RPPIs have to be compiled from infrequent transactions on heterogeneous properties. A higher (lower) proportion of more expensive houses sold in one quarter should not manifest itself as a measured price increase (decrease). There is a need in measurement to control for changes in the quality of houses sold, a non-trivial task.

The main methods of quality adjustment are (i) hedonic regressions; (ii) use of repeat sales data only; (iii) mix-adjustment by weighting detailed relatively homogeneous strata; and (iv) the sales price appraisal ratio (SPAR). The method selected depends on the database used. There needs to be details of salient price-determining characteristics for hedonic regressions, a relatively large sample of transactions for repeat sales, and good quality appraisal information for SPAR. In the US, for example, price comparisons of repeat sales are mainly used, akin to the like-with-like comparisons of the matched models method, Shiller (1991). There may be bias from not taking full account of depreciation and refurbishment between sales and selectivity bias in only using repeat sales and excluding new home purchases and homes purchased only once. However, the use of repeat sales does not require data on quality characteristics and controls for some immeasurable characteristics that are difficult to effectively include in hedonic regressions, such as a desirable or otherwise view from the property.

The problem of source data

Second, the data sources are generally secondary sources that are not tailor-made by the national statistical offices (NSIs), but collected by third parties, including the land registry/notaries, lenders, realtors (estate agents), and builders. The adequacy of these sources to a large extent depends on a country’s institutional and financial arrangements for purchasing a house and varies between countries in terms of timeliness, coverage (type, vintage, and geographical), price (asking, completion, transaction), method of quality-mix adjustment (repeat sales, hedonic regression, SPAR, square meter) and reliability; pros and cons will vary within and between countries. In the short-medium run users may be dependent on series that have grown up to publicize institutions, such as lenders and realtors, as well as to inform users. Metadata from private organizations may be far from satisfactory.

We stress that our concern here is with measuring RPPIs for FSIs and macroeconomic analysis where the transaction price, that includes structures and land, is of interest. However, for the purpose of national accounts and analysis based thereon, such as productivity, there is a need to both separate the price changes of land from structures and undertake adjustments to price changes due to any quality change on the structures, including depreciation. This is far more complex since separate data on land and structures is not available when a transaction of a property takes place. Diewert, de Haan, and Hendriks (2011) and Diewert and Shimizu (2013a) tackle this difficult problem.

Figure 1 shows alternative data sources in its center and coverage, methods for adjusting for quality mix, nature of the price, and reliability in the four quadrants. Land registry data, for example, may have an excellent coverage of transaction prices, but have relatively few quality characteristics for an effective use of hedonic regressions, not be timely, and have a poor reputation. Lender data may have a biased coverage to certain regions, types of loans, exclude cash sales, have “completion” (of loan) price that may differ from transaction price, but have data on characteristics for hedonic quality adjustment. Realtor data may have good coverage, aside from new houses, data on characteristics for hedonic quality adjustment, but use asking prices rather than transaction prices.

The importance of distinguishing between asking and transaction prices will vary between countries as the length of time between asking and transaction varies with the institutional arrangements for buying and selling a house and the economic cycle of a country.

Whether measurement matters

A natural question is whether the differences in source data and methodologies used matters to the overall outcome of the index. Silver (2015) undertook an extensive formal analysis based on the RPPIs and, as explanatory variables, the associated methodological and source data for 157 RPPIs from 2005:Q1 to 2010:Q1 from 24 countries. The resulting panel data had fixed-time and fixed-country effects; the estimated coefficients on the explanatory measurement variables were first held fixed and then relaxed to be time varying. Subsequently, the explanatory variables were interacted with the country dummies.

imf-indicesThe rest of the paper examines, consolidates, and provides improved practical methods for the timely estimation of hedonic RPPIs, though, as noted earlier, the proposed methods apply equally to CPPIs. Hedonic regressions are the main mechanism recommended for and used by countries for a crucial aspect of RPPI estimation—preventing changes in the quality-mix of properties transacted translating to price changes.

RPPIs and CPPIs are hard to measure. Houses, never mind commercial properties, are infrequently traded and heterogeneous. Average house prices may increase over time, but this may in part be due to a change in the quality-mix of the houses transacted; for example, more 4-bedroom houses in a better (more expensive) post-code transacted in the current period compared with the previous or some distant reference period would bias upwards a measure of change in average prices. A purpose and crucial challenge of RPPIs and CPPIs is to prevent changes in the quality-mix of properties transacted translating to measured price changes. The need is to measure constant-quality property price changes and while there are alternative approaches, the concern of this paper is with the hedonic approach as a recommended widely used methodology for this.

 

Note: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.