The stand-out and shocker postcodes for detached housing supply

Yesterday’s Missive found an undersupply of detached houses for sale in Sydney (2%), regional NT (2%), Darwin (3%) and Perth (3%).

Detached housing markets at equilibrium are:  Adelaide (4%), Brisbane (4%), Melbourne (4%), Hobart (5%) and regional NSW (6%).

The oversupplied detached housing markets are: regional WA (especially the Margaret River area) (14%), regional Victoria (9%), regional Queensland (including the Gold and Sunshine coasts and Cairns) (8%), regional SA (7%) and the rest of Tassie (well, Launceston) (7%).

But where are the stand-out post codes? And where are the shockers – the spots where housing supply has increased, and sometimes by lots?

The current top 10 improvers were all from Victoria, Queensland and WA. The two outer-Melbourne suburbs of Werribee South and Wyndham Vale had the biggest drops in housing stock for sale, although it’s worth pointing out there’s plenty more on offer very nearby – similar outer-Melbourne suburbs dominate the losers list, in fact some of them are right next door.

Portland in regional Victoria is worth a mention – it’s had a whopping 71% drop in the number of houses for sale over the year, with just 110 currently on the market. Portland’s main industry is – you guessed it – its busy port.

Queensland’s biggest drops in housing stock were Yeppoon near Rockhampton, Coolum on the Sunny Coast (down 31% to 618) and Hervey Bay. On the Gold Coast, Paradise Point and Broadbeach both have around 200 fewer houses for sale than this time last year – another tiny piece of good news for the struggling Goldie.

Willetton, a suburb in Perth (down 33% to 428 houses for sale), and Mandurah further south of the capital round out WA’s share of the top 10, with both WA locations also dropping about 200 houses each off the sales list.

The bottom 10 list is dominated by the outer suburbs of Melbourne, where houses for sale seem to be a dime a dozen. These are the spots that have experienced the highest jumps – leaps if you like – in the numbers of houses for sale. Clyde North in Melbourne’s southern outskirts has recorded a dramatic 213% rise (1,342 houses on the market); Taylors Hill out in the north-west has seen a 130% spike (to 1,158), while nearby Rockbank has leaped up by a staggering 295%. Seven of the top 10 losers are on the outskirts of Melbourne; the eighth Victorian entry is Bairnsdale, a small city in Gippsland.

The other two biggest losers are Wurdong Heights, a new development south of Gladstone in Queensland where demand from mining workers is quite high, and Woorree east of Geraldton in WA – also a mining area, where new homes, in the past at least, have been resold – and quite quickly.  Mining-related retrenchments, however, might slow down sales in the future.

Michael Matusik is the founder of Matusik Property Insights, which has helped over 550 new residential projects come to fruition.  Read Michael's blogor follow him on Twitter or connect via LinkedIn.