Cotality's national Home Value Index (HVI) rose 0.7% in August, the strongest month on month gain since May last year. The result pushed the annual change higher for the second month in a row, to 4.1%.
The growth cycle has been gradually building momentum since the February rate cut, with buyer demand spurred by a lift in borrowing capacity, real wages growth, rising confidence and what is likely to be a growing sense of urgency as advertised stock levels remain tight.
Charles Tarbey, Chairman of Century 21, had previously predicted future property price growth in Australia and believes that more may be coming, "Without some type of unforeseen global catastrophe, I would expect national prices to keep climbing for the foreseeable future.
"The reality is that Australia still has not meaningfully addressed housing supply shortages. I am firmly of the view that governments need to remove themselves from many construction markets and revert back to some of the strategies that were deployed in the nineties.
"For instance, this could mean focusing on aggressive land release strategies and allowing private enterprise to increase the pace of developments and construction, by having private builders dealing directly with the customers without the interference of government and bureaucracy," Charles Tarbey said.
Predicted by Century 21 in past market updates, the growth trend remains geographically broad-based with almost every region recording a rise in values over the month.
Tasmania remains the exception, with Hobart values down -0.2% over the month.
The mid-sized capitals are once again leading the growth trend, with Brisbane (+1.2%) and Perth (+1.1%) recording the highest monthly gains. Adelaide wasn't far behind with a 0.9% lift in values.
Sydney recorded a 0.8% gain and Melbourne a 0.3% gain.
Darwin has also recorded a solid gain, with a 1.0% rise in August, taking values 10.8% higher through the first eight months of the year, by far the highest year-to-date gain across the capital cities.
Cotality Australia's research director, Tim Lawless said, "Once again we are seeing a clear mismatch between available supply and demonstrated demand placing upwards pressure on housing values.
"The annual trend in estimated home sales is up 2% on last year and tracking almost 4% above the previous five-year average. At the same time, advertised supply levels remain about -20% below average for this time of the year."
Cotality believes that the federal government's fast-tracked Home Guarantee Scheme will boost options for first home buyers, with the number of qualifying markets set to almost double.
Under the old price caps, around a third of markets analysed nationally had a median value below the respective limits, but under the new rules, this portion is set to jump to 63.1%.
Nationally, just over half of house markets (51.6%) will fall under the new price caps, while 93.7% of unit markets will qualify.
With many new markets opening up to first homebuyers, Charles Tarbey believes that this group should be mindful of the areas that they are buying into. They should be conscious of not overextending themselves while placing importance on areas that have potential for future capital growth.
Charles Tarbey believes that this new scheme may create multiple waves of new first home buyers entering the market, "I'd expect that we will see a first wave of buyers during the last quarter of this year followed by a second wave that would have been later qualifying for finance and the incentives. A challenge may arise where the first wave pushes prices higher which in turn may disadvantage the second wave.
On the hot topic of immigration, Charles Tarbey believes that while immigration is good for the economy, governments need to be better assessing how many immigrants Australia can "accommodate" and in the context of demand levels from first homebuyers already finding the market very difficult to enter.
"While I believe in reasonable immigration and all its merits, I feel that there may be a mismatch between immigration levels, domestic first homebuyer demand and current housing supply. Governments need to better assess and balance this matrix so that we can better accommodate people and ensure the Australian dream of homeownership remains attainable."