This included an online news journalist for the SMH, Chris Zappone, and the TV morning show host, David Koch. There was no empirical basis for their scepticism (ie, they did not reference any other index data), just the claim that the notion of house price increases was hard to believe. Zappone and Koch are well known for being bearish on the housing market generally, so this negativity was not surprising in and of itself.
The good news is that we now have a completely independent set of median price data from the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV). According to the REIV, median prices across Victoria actually rose 3.8% in the June quarter. They increased by a similarly impressive 2.9% in the city of Melbourne (see the table below). We also have access to daily data from RP Data-Rismark, which shows that the capital growth that commenced in June in Melbourne has continued over July.
As is often the case, the REIV median price results are much more volatile (or imprecise) on a quarterly basis than RP Data-Rismark's hedonic index, which uses a sophisticated statistical regression technology to ensure that it measures the actual change in dwelling values rather than noise generated by compositional adjustments in the types of homes that are selling. It will be fascinating to see how these two journalists report the REIV's results, if indeed at all.
