Australian House Prices Decline as Edge Comes Off Sydney Boom

(Bloomberg) -- Australian house prices fell last month, amid growing signs the boom in Sydney has peaked as regulators clamp down on investor lending.

Home prices fell 0.3 percent nationally, led by a 0.9 percent drop in Sydney, according to CoreLogic Inc. data released Thursday. The Sydney housing market, which surged 75 percent between February 2012 and July, has now dropped 3.1 percent from its peak, the data showed.

“In the absence of a catalyst to reinvigorate the market, such as lower mortgage rates or a loosening in credit policies, we expect to see a continuation of softening conditions across” Sydney and Melbourne, where prices fell for a second straight month, CoreLogic’s head of research Tim Lawless said.

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