Aussie suburbs to avoid where a surprising number of homes sell at a loss

Nearly four in 10 Australian suburban sellers lost money when they sold their home, despite a double-digit increase in property values ​​across the country.

While most Australians are making money when they sell, homeowners in central Melbourne have been left out of pocket.

Apartment owners in the city of Melbourne were the hardest hit in Australia, with 38.9 percent of homes there sold at an average loss of $54,500, new CoreLogic data shows.

In the rest of the country, just one in 16 homes were sold at a loss, the data showed, while homes in capital cities rose by 10.6 percent nationally.

But in the Port of Melbourne – in addition to the Docklands developments – the average house prices fell 0.1 percent to $1.67 million over the year through March. The value of apartments in the same suburb fell 1.3 per cent to $798,563.

However, these were the exceptions in the latest CoreLogic Pain and Gain report, which showed that in total almost 95 percent of homes were sold at a profit – the highest level since July 2010.

Homeowners typically sell for a profit eight years and 10 months after moving in, with homes increasing in value more than units.

“Despite the fact that house prices tend to decline more sharply during downturns, they also generally experience greater appreciation,” CoreLogic said.

“Houses have always maintained a premium due to land values ​​and development opportunities, as well as the relatively large number of units built in the 2010s.”

But it was a different story in the city of Darwin, where a third of homes were sold at a loss, with owners typically losing $70,000 of what they originally paid for the property.

Across Australia, 94.3 percent of homes sold for a profit (pictured is a house in Sydney)

In Larrakeyah, unit values ​​fell 1.6 percent over the past year to $447,117.

House prices in the Darwin suburb of Wulagi fell 0.9 per cent to $532,677 – even lower than Darwin’s average price of $584,538, making it the most affordable city in the country.

In Sydney, Parramatta also performed poorly, with more than a quarter of homes in this council area sold at a loss. The average seller lost $49,750.

Homes around the city of Parramatta held their value over the past year, but Sydney’s south-west had suburbs where prices declined.

In Austral they fell 1.8 per cent to $920,159, falling further below Sydney’s median house price of $1.4 million, but only one in eight homes in Liverpool council sold at a loss.