ACT Excerpt from the 2020 August Market report

The ACT's property values have grown by 1.3% since the end of March. Eliza Owen, head of residential research at CoreLogic, said while this could be viewed as an anomaly given the overall downtrend, it actually is just an impact of the record-low cash rate.

"RBA research has noted that reductions in the cash rate typically increase property values over time, because debt becomes cheaper and purchasing capacity increases," she said.

Owen said the ACT’s housing market has likely been supported by favourable labour market conditions. In fact, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that the number of jobs across the financial and insurance industry in the ACT has increased 0.7% since the start of the pandemic.

"This market has likely been buoyed by the relative stability in employment across sectors where workers are on higher incomes and are more likely to be homeowners or prospective buyers," she said.

At the same time, ACT has seen the largest rate of decline amongst all states and territories in the labour market for accommodation and food services sector, which has been the hardest hit amid the COVID-19 outbreak.

Source: CoreLogic, August 2020