House prices in Australia climbed 1.0 percent on quarter in the fourth quarter of 2017, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.
That exceeded expectations for a flat reading following the 0.2 percent decline in the third quarter.
On a yearly basis, house prices jumped 5.0 percent - again beating forecasts for 3.9 percent following the 8.3 percent spike in the three months prior.
The capital city residential property price indexes rose in Melbourne (+2.6 percent), Perth (+1.1 percent), Brisbane (+0.9 percent), Hobart (+3.9 percent), Canberra (+1.7 percent) and Adelaide (+0.6 percent) and fell in Sydney (-0.1 percent) and Darwin (-1.5 percent).
Annually, residential property prices rose in Hobart (+13.1 percent), Melbourne (+10.2 percent), Canberra (+5.7 percent), Sydney (+3.8 percent), Adelaide (+3.6 percent) and Brisbane (+2.1 percent) and fell in Darwin (-6.3 percent) and Perth (-1.7 percent).
The total value of residential dwellings in Australia was A$6.869 trillion at the end of the December quarter, rising A$92.858 billion over the quarter.
The mean price of residential dwellings rose A$6,500 to A$686,700 and the number of residential dwellings rose by 40,400 to 10,003,100 in the December quarter.
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