House and unit prices grew in regional Australia in January and fell across the combined capital cities. Adelaide recorded the largest jump in value, followed by Darwin, while prices fell the most in Melbourne and Canberra.
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00:00Good news or bad news, depending on whether you're buying or selling. Of course, this
00:06data is from January and shows that across all our capital cities, there's been a drop
00:11in value of about 0.2%, but in the regions, values have grown 0.4%. To rattle off a couple
00:18of numbers from capital cities, Sydney's down 0.4%, Melbourne down 0.6% and Canberra is
00:24down 0.5%, but all the other capital cities are up. Adelaide is up 0.7%, followed by
00:31Perth, Darwin and Brisbane, and Hobart prices have remained flat over January. Darwin's
00:38a bit of an interesting case too, in the three months to January, prices there have risen
00:421.7%, which is quite high for Darwin, and that's just behind Adelaide, which has seen
00:48a real surge in prices, up 1.8% for the three months to January. This is all quite good
00:53news for first home buyers, especially in Melbourne, where prices in the year to February
00:592025 have actually dropped 3.3%, and there's a lot on the market in Melbourne right now
01:05and in Hobart, so it's created a buyer's market for first home buyers.
01:09Rachel, what effect is the Bank of Mum and Dad having on the market?
01:14New data from Digital Finance Analytics, which runs this rolling survey of 52,000 Australians
01:20has shown just how much of an effect the Bank of Mum and Dad is having on the market.
01:26That survey showed that in 2024, for the whole year, 60% of respondents relied on their parents
01:34to get into the market for the first time. Of those people, 80% relied on mum and dad,
01:39but 12% actually relied on their grandparents, and this is quite a new trend that's coming
01:44through of first home buyers leaning on their grandparents to get a deposit, to get a home
01:49deposit, rather than just their parents. About five or ten years ago, those figures
01:54were at zero. There was really no one asking their grandparents for money. Last year, it
01:57was 12%, which just goes to show this generational shift in value and money in the people who
02:05are trying to get into the market and the access that they have to that cash.
02:10Martin North is from Digital Finance Analytics and had a bit to say about that.
02:15This is laying the seed for a long-term problem. The reason that most parents have money to
02:20hand down is because they are sitting in property that's gone up in value. In fact, it's the
02:25accelerated growth in property over a generation or two that has given them the wealth to enable
02:30them to pass it down to the next generation, which means that it's perpetuating a process.
02:36That process will continue for as long as home prices continue to drive significantly
02:41higher relative to the cost of living or to incomes. And secondly, it puts a bigger
02:46wedge between those who have and those who haven't.
02:49Those stats also showed that last year, the amount that first home buyers were borrowing
02:53from the family bank was $112,000, up from $108,000 the year before. But in Sydney, that
02:59figure was $212,000, which really goes to show just how much of an advantage first home
03:05buyers have when they can rely on their family.