7. Ray White Now | JULY 2021 | Page 27

AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY

GOVERNMENT GROWTH DRIVING HOUSING DEMAND
While the rest of Australian property markets languished in the early days of COVID , the Canberra market sprung into action . The pandemic created such strong growth in employment that the city has been the only one where more office space has been demanded , despite big changes to the way that we work . This employment growth flowed through to housing demand and Canberra has seen some of the strongest growth in Australia in both prices and rents over the past 12 months .
The suburbs seeing the most price growth are relatively mixed . Woden Valley and Belconnen account for the majority of suburbs but for places like Strathnairn ,
this could be attributed to a large number of new houses . At the top end of the market , Canberra has seen more of a doubling of suburbs with a $ 1 million median or above .
For now , it looks like more of the same for Canberra for the rest of the year . The city is tightly controlled for housing supply and there is plenty of new apartment construction to assist with housing demand . Government employment is also likely to remain strong , which has positive flow on impacts to other sectors of the economy . Living with the pandemic is getting easier , but it will still be a while before conditions are truly normal again .
TOP GROWTH SUBURBS - CANBERRA 12 months to May 2021
SUBURB REGION MEDIAN GROWTH Strathnairn Belconnen $ 537,000 68.3 % Mawson Woden Valley $ 985,500 31.2 % Lyneham North Canberra $ 985,500 25.9 % Garran Woden Valley $ 1,265,000 25.9 % Gordon Tuggeranong $ 697,000 25.6 % Macquarie Belconnen $ 510,000 25.2 %
Banks Tuggeranong $ 630,000 24.0 % Palmerston Gungahlin-Hall $ 768,750 23.4 % Weetangera Belconnen $ 1,065,000 23.1 %
Pearce Woden Valley $ 1,076,000 21.2 %
Source : Corelogic , Ray White 27