National home prices in March hit a new peak for 2025 as February’s rate cut reignited buyer demand, according to separate reports from Australia’s leading property analytics companies.
Property values increased 0.4% over the month – the second consecutive month of growth in the national index, CoreLogic reported, after a brief three-month decline where values dipped 0.5%.
PropTrack’s price index found similar trends, recording price increases over the month in all capital cities, led by Canberra (+0.54%) and Sydney (+0.47%). It flagged the biggest annual price increases in Adelaide (11.32%) and Perth (11.53%), with Melbourne (-2.26%) the only capital city to see a decline on the previous year.
According to PropTrack, national home prices had risen 48% over the past five years.
Over the past 25 years, the price of a typical home has jumped from four times the median income, in the early 2000s, to more than eight times, with rates of home ownership among younger Australians dropping dramatically as a result.
Buyer’s agents said the uptick in prices was bad news for those struggling to get into the market, as well as renters, who are often spending more on housing than those with mortgages.
Tim Lawless, research director for CoreLogic, said the “pretty mild” turnaround was driven by a change in consumer sentiment after rate cuts.
“It’s definitely the two consecutive months of growth now that coincide with the February rate cut,” he said. “Even though a 0.4% rise in our national index is definitely not shooting the lights out.
“This is a pretty mild turnaround, but it’s a turnaround nonetheless. The markets responded to lower interest rates probably more from a sense of improved confidence and sentiment rather than any real direct improvements in serviceability and borrowing capacity.”
Melbourne-based buyer’s advocate Ying Chan noticed more buyers at auctions, with properties selling earlier.
“Ever since the start of the year, the demand has been there,” Chan said. “The markets have opened up earlier than they normally would.”
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Although the small interest rate drop “doesn’t change the repayments that much”, consumer confidence had increased, she said, with a lot of first home buyers currently in the market at the moment.
“There’s a lot of grants and schemes at the moment to help first home buyers into the market. And a lot of up-sizers, who have been sitting on the fence, but have not previously decided.”
Chan said about 75% of the first-time buyers she deals with have help from either the bank of mum and dad or a government scheme. She said her agency had also seen an increase in non-traditional purchasing groups, such as friends, siblings, or intergenerational families.
For the first time in her 13-year career, Chan said it was now often cheaper to pay off a mortgage than it was to rent.
“And sometimes the market can outpace your savings rate,” she said.
“It’s really unfair if you don’t have any help,” she says “It’s not a level playing field.”
