While the continued rise of property prices in Melbourne and Sydney dominate nay discussion about Australian real estate, analysts CoreLogic have revealed the current increase in prices is only moderate compared to the country’s last property boom.

The current rise in house prices in Sydney and Melbourne in May 2012 and in the three years following that Sydney prices have risen by 38.8% and Melbourne prices by 23.6%. 

Those figures are somewhat smaller than the rises seen in the boom of 2001-2004, when capital growth rose in Sydney by 60.2% and 58% in Melbourne. 

While the capital growth in Sydney and Melbourne isn’t as impressive as the previous boom, their increases are much higher than the increases seen ion other capital cities. 

In the three year periods since house prices in each city hit their lowest, prices have risen in Brisbane by 10.9%, in Adelaide by 7%, in Hobart by 8.9% in Darwin by 17.3% and in Canberra by 8.5%. 

“[A] major difference is that post-2000 growth was broad-based whereas the current growth in home values has been narrow, largely focussed on Sydney and Melbourne,” CoreLogic analyst Cameron Kusher said.

“At the same time, household debt levels were substantially lower in 2001 than they are now, which is another key contributing factor for strong increases in home values then, compared to now,” he said.