Record supply figures in top markets point to easing affordability

“The fall in house prices will dampen demand for new housing over the next 12 months. Add to this, the proliferation of punitive taxes on investors in the housing market, disincentives to overseas buyers and tighter oversight of mortgage lending for home purchases and the environment for residential building is facing significant challenges,” Mr Reardon said.

“For these reasons we expect that the housing market will cool over the next couple of years, but the down-cycle that has emerged, in certain segments of the market and locations, will be moderate.”

He added that detached housing starts in the March quarter this year was the strongest result in 18 years, and that similar trends should follow for the June quarter.

“On this basis, it now looks like we will round out the 2017–18 year with over 120,000 detached house starts. This would be the strongest four-quarter performance for the sector since the mid-1990s,” Mr Reardon said.

Further affordability improvements and regulatory measures were described by Mr Reardon as most likely to affect the apartment markets in metropolitan areas.

“In the March 2018 quarter Victoria posted a record high of 12,000 multi-unit starts, which accounted for nearly half of the 26,300 units that were commenced across the entire country. The slowdown in apartments is also likely to be focused on metropolitan Melbourne and Sydney.”

However, this trend is not likely to be applicable across the rest of the country, with strong market movements in major regional centres offsetting some of the decline across metropolitan Australia.

Further, Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia are following different trends, while Western Australia is not in a state of decline anymore.