Jitters as house prices fall for units, apartments in Melbourne’s property market

Home owners shouldn’t be “unnecessarily worried” by stagnating property prices in Melbourne, Domain editor Emily Power says.

In an article today, Domain reports falling house prices could hurt home owners looking to refinance, and hit the 18 to 34-year-old demographic hardest.

Power told Tom Elliott property prices are cyclical and agreed people shouldn’t be too nervous about valuations just yet despite stagnating prices.

“We did a house price report that came out at the end of March and found that although house prices had risen 12% in the last year, it’s stagnating in Melbourne,” she said.

“Where prices are going backwards is when it comes to units and apartments, that tends to be where young people are buying.

“That makes sense if it’s younger people struggling to refinance as they though they had more equity in the property they’d been chipping away at.

“As it turns out there’s been drops anywhere between 2-7 per cent, when you talk about apartment prices, depending on which area you look at.”

But she agreed with Tom that people shouldn’t be “unnecessarily worried” about a drop in the market.

“I don’t think it is of a great worry, I think it will be more of a short term stagnation,” she said.

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