Australia property showing contrasting fortunes, central bank notes

Members of the Reserve Bank of Australia have noted that the Australian property market is showing mixed fortunes.

Minutes of this month's monetary policy meeting - in which the main cash rate was held - revealed that housing transactions and new building had increased during March, although at the same time ABS data had indicated a fall in prices.

However, it also noted that "while house prices in the most expensive suburbs had fallen significantly over the past year, prices in the least expensive suburbs had risen recently".

Such a difference may mean that those looking to buy property in the country might wish to consider checking the differing trends for prices depending on the location within each town or city they are considering.

Differing trends between cities were also revealed earlier this year in the RP Data-Rismark Hedonic Property Index for the first two months of 2009.

These showed a 1.9 per cent rise during the period in Melbourne and a 0.5 per cent increase in Sydney.

In contrast, there were declines in Adelaide, Perth, Brisbane and Canberra.