Australian homes listed for sale fell
4.9 percent in July from the previous month, signaling the
housing market may be on the road to recovery, according to SQM
Research Pty.

Homes offered for sale fell to 368,081, the Sydney-based
research group said in an e-mailed statement. Melbourne had the
biggest decline, dropping 12.6 percent from June, it said.

“It is early days, however, this could be an indicator of
a turning point in the market,” SQM Managing Director Louis
Christopher said in the statement.

Australian home prices unexpectedly rose 0.5 percent in the
three months to June, statistics bureau data this week showed,
ending five-straight quarters of declines, after 1.25 percentage
points of interest rate cuts by the Reserve Bank of Australia
since November. House and apartment prices also climbed 0.6
percent in July from the prior month, according to the RP Data-
Rismark home value index.

Home listings fell 2.4 percent from a year earlier, with
Darwin and Perth seeing the biggest declines, SQM said. Homes
for sale in Melbourne rose 4.8 percent from a year earlier.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Nichola Saminather in Sydney at
nsaminather1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Malcolm Scott at
mscott23@bloomberg.net