Year in Review: 2022 tips from sellers market to buyers market

Residz Team 6 min read


Can you believe it’s the end of 2022 already! It’s been a newsworthy year for the real estate industry, and an innovative one for Residz.

From interest rate rises and soaring building costs to record low rental vacancies, 2022 has presented some major challenges for home buyers, sellers, and renters alike.

Residz heard the call from home buyers and sellers, and this year added more features on our platform to make it easier to get free property reports, suburb investability scores, free ‘recently sold’ prices information, and free and instant property valuations.

So, that’s the overview, let’s take a look back at the details of the year that was.

Opened borders kick off 2022

It seems so long ago, but it was only at the start of 2022 that Australia’s closed borders finally opened.

While those on working holiday visas and students were allowed to enter Australia from December 15, 2021, the borders only opened to the wider overseas public in February.

Australia had imposed some of the world's strictest travel bans from March 2020 due to Covid-19. The closed borders Australia shut out most of the usual 9.5 million overseas visitors (2019 figures) and affected the tourism and hospitality industries, landlords renting to international students, thousands of companies needing skilled or itinerant workers, and the international real estate market.

However, it did lead to Australians spending money at home, and much of that spend was redirected to buying homes and investment properties in ‘lifestyle’ areas, and upgrading existing homes.  

Interest rates start their ‘correction’ journey

On May 3, 2022, when the Reserve Bank of Australia announced that inflation had picked up more quickly, and to a higher level, than it had expected, mortgagees held their breath. Sure enough, the bank began lifting interest rates, and then kept lifting them, in an attempt to bring down the inflation rate.

For seven consecutive months the RBA made increases of either 0.25% and 0.50%, taking the cash rate to 3.10% per annum (to December 6, 2022). The RBA has signalled it may continue to raise rates in the first half of 2023.

“The Board expects to increase interest rates further over the period ahead. It is closely monitoring the global economy, household spending and wage and price-setting behaviour.

“The size and timing of future interest rate increases will continue to be determined by the incoming data and the Board’s assessment of the outlook for inflation and the labour market.

“The Board remains resolute in its determination to return inflation to target and will do what is necessary to achieve that.” - Phillip Lowe, RBA Governor.

This has slowed the housing market considerably. Interest rate increases reduce the maximum amount that home buyers can borrow, and increases the cost of servicing a mortgage.

Housing values take a tumble

2022 began strongly but without the frenzy of the 2021 pandemic housing boom. Property prices increased by 1.1% nationally over January.

Brisbane and Adelaide were the darlings of the real estate market, with dwelling prices rising 2.3% and 2.2% respectively. (CoreLogic data).

Residz were active in attempting to assist buyers early in the year who found themselves confronted with a ‘sellers market’ and FOMO (fear of missing out).  We did this by providing as much lifestyle and basic property data from which buyers could be more confident about their offers in the tight market.

By February, it was a different story for home sellers, and the first signs of a cooling market were felt.

For the first time since early in the pandemic, Sydney’s monthly home price growth declined.

Come May, the interest rate rises began with many predicting doom and gloom, and indeed the value of dwellings nationally began to fall.  


Capital cities led the downturn in prices, but regional areas held up, recording an increase in values into June.

Residz decided that if buyers were going to be subject to a series of rate rises, perhaps they needed to know that the locality in which they were buying would be a secure investment into the future. Thereby leading to development of our Investability index.

As the market levelled out and suffered price falls in the major cities, Residz further developed their Property Report generation allowing both buyers and sellers to get a holistic view of any address in terms of a wide range of lifestyle and risk data.

These reports were free of charge and allowed easy comparisons between addresses, suburbs, and cities.

By August, even the regional areas were feeling the pinch of the interest rate rises and falls in consumer confidence. The more expensive regional markets were the first to record value declines, and the pace of growth slowed in cheaper areas.

Month by month the prices went down, especially in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane - leading to the housing market being declared a ‘buyer’s market.’

CoreLogic’s national Home Value Index (HVI) moved through a seventh month of decline in November, down -1.0% over the month to be -7.0%, or approximately -$53,400, below the peak value recorded in April 2022.

But in October to late November, a curious thing was observed.

The rate of decline in Australia’s property values began ‘easing.’

CoreLogic’s research director, Tim Lawless, said the easing in the rate of decline was mostly emanating from the Sydney and Melbourne markets, but was also evident across many of the smaller capitals and most regional markets.

He added that the Perth and Darwin markets had been insulated from the downturns, and were ‘yet to record any signs of a material reversal in housing prices.’

So 2022 may have been just a ‘correction’ and we may have reached the bottom of the market. Or, it may be lumpier than that, and the belt-tightening will have to continue.

Rental vacancies at record low

2022 was the year of the rental crisis. This was the year when renting a home became harder and more expensive than ever before.

“Tenants are facing the toughest rental market ever in Australia,” reported the Sydney Morning Herald in November.

AHURi research shows the national rental vacancy rate (i.e. the percentage of untenanted rental properties against all rental properties) was at 0.9% in September 2022, the lowest since April 2006 (when it was 0.8% for one month).

It said factors included:

More features on Residz

As we saw, 2022 was the year that Residz added some great new features to its property research platform.

Now that the census data has mostly been published, much of it has been incorporated into Residz providing up-to-date insights into the property market generally and those lifestyle and risk attributes for which we are well known.

So now, for example, within seconds you can now use this Residz demand valuation tool to get a free instant valuation based on the average prices of similar-sized properties in the local area.

As well as instant home valuations and sales history, there’s another exciting new feature. The address, date of sale, and selling price for every property sold recently in the suburb will be instantly listed below your property valuation.

Residz can help buyers and sellers reduce the stress:

Image by Nksy87 of estate agent John Morrisby, conducting an auction of real estate in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.