2017.09.1822:46:00UTC+00Australia House Prices Jump 1.9% In Q2

House prices in Australia climbed 1.9 percent on quarter in the second three months of 2017, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.

That beat forecasts for an increase of 1.3 percent but was down from 2.2 percent in the previous three months.

The capital city residential property price indexes rose in Sydney (+2.3 percent), Melbourne (+3.0 percent), Brisbane (+0.6 percent), Adelaide (+0.8 percent), Canberra (+1.3 percent) and Hobart (+1.8 percent) and fell in Perth (-0.8 percent) and Darwin (-1.4 percent).

On a yearly basis, house prices jumped 10.2 percent - again topping expectations for 9.2 percent but unchanged from the three months prior.

Annually, residential property prices rose in Sydney (+13.8 percent), Melbourne (+13.8 percent), Hobart (+12.4 percent), Canberra (+7.9 percent), Adelaide (+5.0 percent) and Brisbane (+3.0 percent) and fell in Darwin (-4.9 percent) and Perth (-3.1 percent).

"Residential property prices, while continuing to rise in Melbourne and Sydney this quarter, have begun to moderate. These results highlight the diverse housing market and economic conditions in Australia's capital cities," said ABS Chief Economist Bruce Hockman.

The total value of residential dwellings in Australia was A$6,726,783.5 million at the end of Q2, rising $A145,868.5 million over the quarter.

The mean price of residential dwellings jumped A$12,100 to $679,100 and the number of residential dwellings rose by 40,000 to 9,906,100 in the second quarter.