Australian property prices have officially recovered from the declines of last year, with CoreLogic’s national daily Home Value Index hitting a new benchmark. After reaching a peak in April 2022, national home values fell -7.5%, finding a floor in January 2023. Since bottoming out, home prices have risen by 8.1%, taking values to a new record high at the end of November.

CoreLogic’s Executive Research Director, Tim Lawless, said it took around nine months for home prices to move from record highs to the recent trough, then roughly ten months to recover from the short but sharp downturn.

"The 'V' shaped recovery may seem counter intuitive, given high interest rates, deeply pessimistic levels of consumer sentiment and high cost of living pressures, however the recovery can be explained by an imbalance between supply and demand," Mr Lawless said.

"From a supply perspective, advertised stock levels have held remarkably low through 2023.  Although inventory levels are now rebalancing as vendor activity picks up, listings remain 16.6% below the previous five-year average nationally.

At the same time, demonstrated demand, based on the volume of homes sales, is trending roughly in line with the five-year average."

While the overall market continues to bounce back, there is still a divergence between the capital cities.

Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane are all at record highs, with their regional counterparts regional WA, regional SA and regional Queensland also hitting new peaks.

At the other end of the scale is Hobart, where values remain -11.8% below their peak and regional Victoria, where dwelling values are -7.0% below their record highs. Sydney home prices are still 1.8% below their peak while Melbourne is also down 3.6%.

Mr Lawless said that he expects prices to continue to break new records over the coming months.

"While this is great news for home owners, for those looking to buy, affordability pressures are becoming more pressing amid rising values, high interest rates and worsening serviceability challenges,” he said.

"The good news for prospective buyers is that the pace of growth is clearly easing in some markets as advertised stock levels rise and purchasing demand remains fragile."