Fewer lower prices houses are being sold in Australia with the residential property market seeing more the number of $1 million plus home sales soaring.
Over the 12 months to June 2016 some 14% of all house sales and 7.3% of all unit sales were at a price of at least $1 million, according to the data from real estate firm Corelogic.
To put these figures into perspective, just five years ago 7.5% of all house sales and 4% of all unit sales were within this price range.
Capital cities have predictably seen a much higher proportion of sales of at least $1 million over the past year. Across all house sales, more than one in five sales, 20.9%, were for at least $1 million compared to 8.9% of all unit sales.
In the regional areas of the country housing sales prices are typically lower than they are in capital cities, the report points out, while also showing that the difference between the proportion of house and unit sales of at least $1 million is much narrower.
In regional areas that units are only located in larger regional markets and often are positioned in relatively expensive in waterfront locations. The historical data shows that often the proportion of unit sales at or above $1 million has been above that for houses and over the past year, 3.3% of all regional house sales and 3% of all unit sales were at least $1 million.
Over the past 10 years in particular there has been a substantial rise in the proportion of sales of at least $1 million. In Sydney over the past year more than two out of every five house sales was at least $1 million and in Melbourne it was one in five.
Sydney had a higher proportion of total unit sales of at least $1 million than the proportion of house sales at that price point in each city except for Melbourne.
The report also points out that as the supply of affordable homes selling has declined significantly over recent years, an increasing proportion of stock is selling for a seven figure sum.
It adds that demand for premium housing and within the most expensive areas of the country remains buoyant which suggests that over the coming year the proportion of sales at a price point of at least $1 million will continue to rise.
