Record $306,000 profits for Aussie property sellers

Scott Kuru March 19, 2025 5 min read

Image from JellisCraig

KEY POINTS

95% of Australian home sellers made a profit in the final quarter of 2024, with a median resale gain of $306,000—a new record
Houses were far less likely to sell at a loss, with only 3.0% of houses resold below the previous purchase price
Sydney and Melbourne accounted for over 60% of loss-making sales, with the biggest losses in unit markets due to the mid-2010s off-the-plan apartment boom

Australians who resold a property in the last three months of 2024 made record gains, raking in a median profit of $306,000 on their home or investments.

New data from CoreLogic also shows that 95% of sellers made a profit during the December quarter.

Owners and investors who sold houses were far less likely to see a loss, with only 3.0% of houses selling for less than the previous price.

The details

Australian home sellers enjoyed record-high rates of profitability and dollar value returns over the December quarter of 2024.

The findings are contained in CoreLogic’s latest “Pain & Gain report”, which analysed 95,300 resales during October, November, and December of 2024.

The data shows 94.8% of sellers made a profit, with a median resale gain of $306,000 - a new record.

“Despite mixed market conditions, declining capital growth and lower clearance rates, Australian property continues to deliver strong profitability,” says CoreLogic’s Head of Research, Eliza Owen, who authored the report.

The percentage of sellers making a nominal profit slipped slightly by 0.3% from the 95.1% recorded in the previous quarter.

Eliza Owen says this slight decline reflects a slip in national home values at the end of 2024.

However, she says the bounce-back seen in CoreLogic’s data, following the Reserve Bank of Australia’s decision to start cutting interest rates in February this year, augurs well for home resales prospects this year.

“Given the strong relationship between capital growth and the rate of profitability and expected further easing in the cash rate this year, the rate of profitability from home resales will likely recover in 2025.“

Pain and Gain

Of the 5.2% of resales that made a loss, the median loss was $45,000, up from $40,000 in the September quarter of 2024 – and above the five-year average of $39,180.

Total nominal gains from resales were $35.6 billion, up from $35.0 billion, while combined losses jumped significantly from $267 million in the September quarter to $302 million.

“Loss-making resales were, on average, held for a shorter amount of time than profit-making sales,” adds Ms Owen.

CoreLogic’s data shows a median hold period of 9.2 years across all resales, including 9.3 years for profit-making resales, and 7.6 years for those that made a loss.

More than 60% of loss-making resales were for properties in Sydney and Melbourne, despite those two cities accounting for just over a third of total resales in the quarter.

Most of the loss-making resales across Sydney and Melbourne were units.

Units in the Melbourne – Inner area saw the highest number of loss-making resales, with 734 in the quarter.

“The off-the-plan apartment boom (of the mid-2010s) has clearly meant lasting losses for sellers in Sydney and Melbourne,” Eliza Owen says.

This was followed by 256 loss-making resales in the Sydney – Parramatta unit market, and 163 loss-making unit resales in the Sydney – Ryde market.

Together, these unit markets accounted for almost one-fifth of Australia’s loss-making resales.

Houses were far less likely to see a loss, with only 3.0% of houses across Australia selling for less than the previous price.

Hold times

CoreLogic’s “Pain and Gain” report also shows that more than a third of loss-making resales in the last three months of 2024 had been owned for less than four years.

“Short selling times can increase the risk of making a loss because you expose yourself to short-term cyclical movements, where value gains in property are generally long term,” Ms Owen says, pointing to the fact that 26.5% of loss-making sales had a hold period of two-to-four-years.

Ms Owen says this shows how many housing markets are yet to recover record-high values reached in early 2022, just before the RBA began lifting the cash rate target from May of that year.

As of February this year, CoreLogic estimates that around a third of suburbs in Australia are below the peak in dwelling values reached in April 2022.

City breakdowns

Of the loss-making resales held for two to four years, just under 40% or around 1,100 resales were across Greater Melbourne.

“The high incidence of loss among Melbourne resellers in such a short hold period reflects other indicators of financial stress in this market, such as weaker economic outcomes for the city since the pandemic, elevated listings volumes and weaker property market conditions more broadly.”

Melbourne was also one of only two capital cities that had a profit-making sales rate of less than 90% in the December quarter.

But when you look at the long term, the CoreLogic data seems to make clear this is a historical anomaly.

Eliza Owen notes that Melbourne is “known for strong growth in dwelling values throughout the decades” and that “a strong growth result in February, coinciding with the RBA decision to reduce the cash rate, could soon see a turn in profitability across the Melbourne market.”

92.5% of all properties resold in Sydney during the final quarter of 2024 made a profit, with the city’s expensive real estate seeing the highest nominal median resale profit at $395,000.

CoreLogic says Brisbane claimed the top spot for profit-making resales in Australia, with almost all resales (99.6%) making a nominal gain.

Brisbane also had the second-highest median profit from resales behind Sydney, at $375,000.

Adelaide was the second most profitable capital city, with 99.1% of resales making a nominal gain.

The SA capital also had the shortest hold periods associated with gains (7.2 years), but also saw losses associated with relatively quick resales.

While Perth chalked up a high profit-making resales rate of 97.4%, it’s worth remembering this is only a relatively recent phenomenon and reflects the extraordinary housing shortage the city is currently experiencing.

As of July 2019, only 56.5% of resales made a profit in the WA capital.