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Australian House Prices Rise, on Track to Recoup Covid Losses

Australian home prices rose for a second straight month in November as the economic recovery gathered strength.

Australian House Prices Rise, on Track to Recoup Covid Losses
Residential buildings and houses stand in the Darling Point area in Sydney. (Photographer: Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg)

Australian home prices rose for a second straight month in November as the economic recovery gathered strength, putting the property market on track to recoup its Covid-related losses by early next year.

House values in major cities rose 0.7% last month, CoreLogic Inc. data released Tuesday showed. Prices rose in every capital city, including Melbourne, which emerged from one of the world’s strictest and longest lockdowns in late October. It has now gone more than 30 days without a new case.

“If housing values continue to rise at the current pace we could see a recovery from the Covid downturn as early as January or February next year,” said Tim Lawless, head of research at CoreLogic. “Improving economic conditions and containment of the virus have lifted consumer spirits to higher than pre-Covid levels.”

Read more: Australian House Prices Set to Rise, CEO of Biggest Bank Says

The property market has also been buoyed by record-low interest rates, government support for the housing industry and a lack of supply of homes for sale, which has created “some urgency” among buyers and is adding to the upwards pressure on values, Lawless said.

Concerns the market would be flooded by distressed sellers has also eased, with employment rising and most people who had deferred their mortgage payments at the depths of the recession moving back onto a repayment schedule.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.