PRICES
Regional New South Wales had the second highest 10-year price growth among the six states.
For the fiscal year ending 2014, regional New South Wales had a geometric mean house price of $354,188, which more than doubled to $745,602 this fiscal year ending 2024. The region’s largest growth came between 2020/21 and 2021/22 where prices grew by 25.5 per cent then 17.0 per cent, respectively. Prices corrected slightly in 2022/23 with a 1.5 per cent drop before increasing by 6.2 per cent this last 2023/24.
This makes New South Wales the most expensive regional house market.
SALES
Unlike with price, which has grown steadily over the last decade, sales transactions saw two spikes in demand but have otherwise remained flat. The first spike occurred between 2015/16 and 2017/18, where sales peaked at 50,479. The second spike occurred in 2020/21 and 21/22, where sales saw its 10-year peak of 58,490, before dropping to its 10-year low of 43,737 sales transactions.
Interestingly, the same years that sales peaked are the same years that price growth peaked.
Newcastle, Wollongong, Lake Macquarie - East, Shoalhaven and Lower Hunter are the five most populous SA3s in regional New South Wales. Newcastle is the most populous with 185,058 people according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) regional population estimates, while Lower Hunter is the least populated of the five with 102,837 people.
Across the board, prices have been strong for these five areas with 10-year growth surpassing regional 10-year growth of 110.5 per cent. Besides Lower Hunter, all SA3s ended 2023/24 with a higher house price compared to regional New South Wales geometric mean of $745,602. However, the story seems to be the complete opposite for sales transactions as Lower Hunter emerges as the only area to boast a dramatically positive sales increase of 38.6 per cent. All other areas showed a significant decrease in sales over the last decade.
Newcastle ended 2023/24 with a geometric mean house price of $975,694, and with 2,363 total sales transactions. The past year was very strong for the area with 4.6 per cent price growth and 1.2 per cent sales growth.
Wollongong is the most expensive area in the list with a geometric mean house price of $1.3 million, but it’s also the area with the least number of sales transactions occurring at 1,188.
In fiscal year ending 2024, Lake Macquarie - East’s geometric mean house price increased by 5.3 per cent to $966,682, while the region’s sales transactions increased by 7.7 per cent to 1,760.
Shoalhaven had the strongest year in terms of sales transactions with an 11.3 per cent year-on-year increase in sales from 1,848 to 2,056. During the same period, its price increased by 5.1 per cent to $887,303.
Lower Hunter, the least populous of the five areas, is also the most affordable of the five areas with a geometric mean house price of $657,386. As mentioned earlier, Lower Hunter also recorded the greatest (and only positive) sales growth of the five areas with sales transactions increasing 38.9 per cent over the last decade to end 2023/24 at 1,777 sales transactions.
Collectively, these five areas make up 20 per cent of all sales transactions in regional New South Wales.