Price growth categorises SA’s Q1 2023

Andrea Heading, chief executive officer at REISA, said the “Adelaide market overall remains stable and reliable,” especially in comparison to Australia’s eastern states. She added the market’s resilience, particularly to interest rate rises, “doesn’t surprise many of us in the state.”

South Australia’s strongest-performing suburbs throughout the three months to March lie within Adelaide’s northern city rim in regions such as Fitzroy, Thorngate, Medindie, and Gilberton, all of which have rebounded from the negative price performances which categorised their conclusion to 2022.

Given early indications in spring and summer that the “typical peak in sales was going to return,” never materialised, the report expects South Australia is “still seeing the ‘corrective’ effects in the market from the unprecedented COVID boom.”

The current dip in sales volume, which saw the average daily sales dip from 55.9 in February 2022 to 36.9 in February 2023, is “sustaining the median sales price at historical highs,” the report read.

Notably, 21 per cent of properties in the state capital are still valued below $450,000.

Inner Adelaide suburb Kent Town reported the largest increase in sales over the three months to March, up 8.6 per cent throughout the period. 

“This follows the basics of supply and demand, as there are less properties available, scarcity increases. And with it, prices remain high. As a result, we remain between a sellers’ and buyers’ market,” it added.

Important questions still linger within the state, particularly those centering around the impact of consistent interest rate rises, which came to an end at the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) April board meeting, and whether this may force additional stock onto the market and creating what the REISA posited as a “sales volume peak.”

“If sales volume remains low, it is anticipated a balanced (albeit potentially declining) property market in South Australia will endure,” the report concluded.