Hotspotting’s predicted change in the pecking order of price growth among the major property markets of Australia has been borne out by the latest research data.

CoreLogic data shows that regional markets and apartment markets are now the best performers and that Perth is no longer leading the nation on price growth. For some time now, regional Australia has been showing better growth on average than capital city Australia and the data to the end of January shows that this, generally speaking, is still the case. According to CoreLogic, in January, median house values for the combined capital cities dropped by 0.2%. At the same time, the combined regional areas recorded an increase of 0.4%.

It’s a similar story with apartments, with the capital cities on average dropping 0.2% in January and the regions increasing by 0.5%. Of the 15 major markets analysed, nine recorded an increase in median house value and the same number achieved growth in median apartment values.

After leading Australia for property price growth for the past two years, the Perth market dropped sharply, its median house value was up by only 0.3% in January and 1.7% over the quarter. Instead, it is the other smaller capital cities leading the nation, with Adelaide (1.7%) on top, followed by Darwin (0.6%) with the highest median house value growth in January. Brisbane and Perth were equal third with growth of 0.3%. Over the quarter, Darwin (2%), Adelaide (1.7%) and Brisbane (1%), are all ahead of Perth (0.8%).

The regional markets of South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania also performed better than Perth in the December quarter.