The ABS Residential Property Price Indexes ended with the December quarter 2021 issue, released on 15 March 2022. Their figures are history: a page that quotes them as today’s prices is quoting a series that ceased in 2021.
General informationThis page describes a statistical series that has ended. It is not financial or legal advice. The final issue stays on the ABS website as the Residential Property Price Indexes, December 2021 release; the ABS’s current figures on the value of homes are in Total Value of Dwellings.
What the indexes measured
A price index tracks how a set of prices changes over time, in percentage terms, against a chosen reference period. This one, the Residential Property Price Index, measured price change in all residential dwellings in the eight Greater Capital City Statistical Areas between two periods. It was made up of two indexes: the House Price Index and the Attached Dwellings Price Index.
The ABS publishes price indexes mainly for government economic analysis, as summary measures of how prices move. The release used catalogue number 6416.0, which is how many older reports cite it.
An index shows movement, not a price level. The index figures said how far prices had moved; the release carried its dollar figures, mean and median prices, in separate tables.
The last figures, read as history
In the final issue, the weighted average of the eight capital cities rose 4.7% in the December quarter 2021 and 23.7% over the twelve months, which the ABS called the largest annual rise since the series began in the September quarter 2003. Every capital city rose in the quarter.
| Capital city | December quarter 2021 | Twelve months to December 2021 |
|---|---|---|
| Sydney | Rose 4.1% | Rose 26.7% |
| Melbourne | Rose 3.9% | Rose 20.0% |
| Brisbane | Rose 9.6% | Rose 27.8% |
| Adelaide | Rose 6.8% | Rose 23.9% |
| Perth | Rose 2.9% | Rose 15.7% |
| Hobart | Rose 6.5% | Rose 29.8% |
| Darwin | Rose 1.5% | Rose 13.0% |
| Canberra | Rose 6.4% | Rose 28.8% |
The city figures above are the final issue’s own. It also recorded that Brisbane and Adelaide had their strongest quarterly rises since the series began, and it gave its reading of the cause at the time: “Record low interest rates and strong demand have continued to support growth in property prices.”
The Reserve Bank’s own table shows what “record low” meant then: the cash rate target stood at 0.10 per cent at every decision of 2021. It has moved many times since; the cash rate guide has the 2026 decisions.
What carried on, and what did not
The final issue named what the ABS would keep publishing: the total value of the nation’s residential dwellings, median prices and the number of property sales, all in a new quarterly release named Total Value of Dwellings, due from June 2022. The price indexes themselves were not on that list.
Total Value of Dwellings now carries the tables that once sat in the old release under catalogue number 6416.0. Its total value series runs back to the September quarter 2011, and until December 2021 it was published in the price index release.
The mean dwelling price is one of the figures that carried across, so the final issue and today’s release can be set side by side, with care. The final issue put the national mean at $920,100, after a rise of $44,000 in the quarter.
| Where | December quarter 2021 | June quarter 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Australia | $920,100 | $1,100,400 |
| New South Wales | $1,207,200 | $1,304,900 |
| Victoria | $956,100 | $918,400 |
| Australian Capital Territory | $979,600 | $981,700 |
| Northern Territory | $489,000 | $614,400 |
The care is in the caption. The 2021 column is each figure as it was first published, before later revision and before the ABS re-based the series on the 2021 Census. The current Total Value of Dwellings tables carry the series as it stands today, all series in one download.
Ending the indexes changed how the newest quarter is estimated. Before the March quarter 2022, the ABS used the movement in its own Residential Property Price Index as a stand-in for the change in mean prices in the latest quarter; it now uses a commercial home value index instead. The guide to the total value of dwellings explains the method.
One caution carries over directly. The medians in Total Value of Dwellings have no grouping or weighting applied, and the ABS says their movements “should not be interpreted as, or compared to, movements in price indexes.” A median taken from the new release and set beside an index figure from the old one is a comparison the ABS warns against.
Spotting the ended series
When a report, a chart or an older document quotes a housing price figure, a few marks show that it comes from the ended indexes.
- The name. “Residential Property Price Index”, “House Price Index” or “Attached Dwellings Price Index”, from the ABS.
- The number. Catalogue 6416.0.
- The date. Any period after the December quarter 2021 cannot come from this series, because the last issue covered that quarter.
When an index sits in a contract
The ABS notes that businesses and governments often use its price indexes in contracts, to adjust payments or charges for changes in prices, through what it calls indexation clauses. The final issue pointed anyone considering such a clause to the ABS’s guidance, Use of Price Indexes in Contracts.
What happens to an existing agreement that names an index which has since ceased depends on the agreement itself. A lawyer can advise the parties on how their own contract reads.