Days on market drop, median rises as conditions improve for property sellers in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie

The CoreLogic Regional Market Update looked at capital growth over the 12 months to October in Australia's 25 largest non-capital city markets. In that period, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie recorded the lowest vendor discounts for house prices, excluding apartments, of all of those regional markets.

Across all markets, 23 of the 25 largest regional house markets recorded value rises, versus 18 regions with positive growth for units.

CoreLogic's head of Australian research Eliza Owen said the traditional drawcards for regional dwelling markets, such as lower density levels and lower purchase prices, coupled with the normalisation of working from home during the coronavirus crisis, had sparked increased levels of demand outside of cities.

"'Commutable' regional areas within a reasonable travel distance to the major metropolitan centres have seen particularly extraordinary increases in demand," Ms Owen said. "House sales volumes increased by double digits across the Mid North Coast, Illawarra and the Hunter Valley."

CoreLogic figures show the median value of houses and units in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie rose from $510,452 in October of last year to $601,225 in October this year. Days on market for houses dropped from 48 days to 34 days in that 12-month period and for units from 59 days to 49 days.

Vendors in the region discounted houses by a lower -2.4 per cent over the most recent 12-month period compared to the -3.4 per cent offered one year earlier.

"Vendors have seen the lowest typical price reductions offered from the initial advertised price in the process of selling their property in the house segment, at just 2.4 per cent," Ms Owen said.

"This means it's more of a seller's market compared to a year ago, when vendors had to offer deeper discounting of 3.8 per cent."

Newcastle and Lake Macquarie real estate agents are reporting many quick sales and "strong" results due to a lack of supply not meeting buyer demand.

Street Property's Damon Sellis said an example was the $1.275 million sale of a three-bedroom, gun-barrel home at 176 Lawson Street in Hamilton South last Saturday after being listed with a guide of $1 million to $1.1 million one week earlier.

"It's not a fraction of what the price guide is any more; it's a fraction of just how far people are willing to pay to get something and secure it," Mr Sellis said.

"The market is extremely strong. It's across every area. We're selling anything from $500,000 to over $5 million. There's buyers for everything at the moment. We're not going to have as much supply coming through once we get to Christmas but next year I think it will kick on again."

First National Newcastle City's George Rafty reported being "the busiest in terms of buyers that I've seen in my time".

He sold a four-bedroom house at 50 Beath Crescent in Kahibah on Monday for a street record $1 million after 10 days on the market. It was listed with a guide of $850,000 to $910,000, which was quickly adjusted to $900,000 to $990,000 due to immediate interest over the initial guide.

"I'm seeing a lot of Sydney buyers, Melbourne people who haven't been able to get here but they're enquiring," Mr Rafty said. "I'm seeing people from out west, places like Tamworth as well as Armidale and Port Macquarie."