Despite the drop-off in the last two quarters of this past financial year a record amount of $1.94 billion dollars in sales took place across the Northern Territory. That is up 3 per cent on the previous financial year with unit/townhouse sales up by 12 per cent but houses down by 4 per cent.

2014-15 produced 113 more sales than the previous year with the bulk of these in the unit market. Sales volume was up 4 per cent on the previous year. It is not expected that the calendar year sales for 2015 will be as strong, but it shows that while there has been a correction in the market it still remains a robust property market in the Territory.

Turning to this quarter’s data, the biggest impacts appear in the rental market with both vacancy rates rising in most areas and rents, for much of the Territory, taking a slight dip again. Overall rent in Darwin showed a slight rise in the house market by 2.3 per cent but two bedroom units were attracting 4.3 per cent less rental than the previous quarter. However, overall rents are around 7 per cent lower than at the same time last year.

The largest drop in rents was in Palmerston with two bedroom room units attracting 9.1 per cent less rent in the last quarter and 13.6 per cent less than the previous year, and three bedroom houses dropped in rent by 5.5 per cent for the quarter which is 11.7 per cent lower than the past year. The one area that bucked the trend on declining rents for this quarter was three bedroom units in Darwin city. They rose in rent by 4.3 per cent for the quarter, but still remain 16.5 per cent lower than at the same time a year ago. Alice Springs rent attraction was fairly steady with just a small drop for the quarter but they remain 5 per cent lower than the previous year.

Vacancy rates in Darwin have drifted out to 6.9 percent this quarter. That is fairly steady against the last quarter but is 2.5 per cent higher than this time last year. In Palmerston the vacancy rates for units/ townhouses are quite bit higher. They rose a further 2.4 per cent this quarter which is up 6.5 per cent from this time last year. Overall the vacancy rates in Palmerston moved up less than 1 per cent but that is still 4.5 per cent higher than the previous year. Alice Springs saw an easing in the house vacancy rates, coming back by 2 per cent, but the unit/townhouse vacancy rate continued to climb.

Median house prices in Darwin were down by 2.4 per cent for the quarter to $610,000. Again this quarter the bulk of the sales remained above the $600,000 mark with only 27 sales below $450,000. This tended to provide a higher median. Palmerston’s median house price dropped by a further 4.4 per cent for the quarter to $540,000. That’s now 8.5 per cent lower than this time last year. In fact the median house price was down in every jurisdiction except Katherine and Alice Springs. While Alice Springs saw a rise in the median house price of 6.1 per cent this quarter that was coupled with a very large fall in sales volumes of 28.4 per cent for the quarter, putting sales volumes at 27 per cent lower than this time last year. Alice Springs recorded a median house price of $470,750, however like Darwin this is mainly due to the bulk of the sales being in a higher price bracket and the reason for this is as the departure from the market place of first home buyers who would normally make up the bulk of buyers at the lower end of the market.

In the unit/townhouse market the median price dropped in Darwin by 4 per cent to $480,000. The unit median rose by 2.3 per cent in Palmerston buoyed by new developments, and in Alice Springs the unit median was up by 10.6 per cent for the quarter.

Current projections look toward a fairly static market for the remainder of this year. Sales are occurring in a timely fashion, provided the vendor is willing to meet current market expectations. Equally most firms are reporting a slow but steady rental uptake, but again at a lower price point.

A lot will depend in 2015-16 on economic drivers from the NT Government. We are told of a number of large projects ‘coming to town’ but as yet the majority of these are shrouded in commercial confidentiality, so we’re unsure of the timing or the nature of these projects and therefore how they may impact on the housing market. So for now, we soldier on.