Over recent years, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has shown that as a proportion of overall dwelling approvals, attached dwellings (high/low rise apartments and townhouses) are increasing. As shown below, the proportion of attached dwellings, based on overall approvals has been trending upwards, and approximately half of all approvals are now for attached stock.
CoreLogic is seeing a similar trend in the proportion of units being advertised for sale. Across the combined capitals, over the four weeks ending 31 July, 2016, it was estimated that 36.2 per cent of dwellings available for sale were units, with houses accounting for 63.8 per cent of total housing stock available for sale.
Sydney and Melbourne, the two largest capital cities in terms of total volume of listings, are seeing the most prominent shift in the availability of stock for sale. In Sydney, over the most recent four week period, it was estimated that 45.3 per cent of stock available for sale were attached dwellings, up from 39.5 per cent last year and 38.3 per cent in 2014.
In Melbourne, almost half (48.9 per cent) of all dwellings currently advertised for sale are units, while one year ago 42.0 per cent of stock was units, and 40.3 per cent in 2014. Interestingly, units make up approximately 33 per cent of total dwelling stock across Melbourne, so the fact that almost half of advertised stock is for units could potentially be showing that investors are looking to cash out of the market, given the increasing fear of unit oversupply. Melbourne, along with Canberra, are two cities where there has been a notable upwards trend in unit listings and a downward trend in house listings.
Furthermore, capital growth for Melbourne houses has outpaced units on a rolling annual basis for the past 31 months and for Canberra, houses values have grown at a faster annual rate than units for the past 11 months.
When we look at the dwelling stock available for sale five years ago, it was a much different story. Units accounted for just 26.1 per cent of overall capital city dwelling stock available for sale. While in Sydney and Melbourne, units accounted for 35.0 per cent and 29.2 per cent of overall stock on the market, respectively.
