What the NRL ladder would look like if it was based on property price growth

If NRL teams were ranked by how rapidly home prices have grown this year, one team would be miles ahead of the pack despite having a forgettable footy season.

Exclusive PropTrack data shows that Queensland teams would be sitting proud at the top of the table for home price growth, even though only one team from the sunshine state managed to crack into the top eight in the regular season this year.

The North Queensland Cowboys would have secured the minor premiership in home price growth, leaving the rest of the competition in the dust with home prices growing 17.6% this year.

That’s despite the Cowboys finishing at 12th on the ladder in the regular season, with nine wins, 14 losses and one draw.

The strong rate of price growth in the Cowboys’ hometown of Townsville is almost twice as fast as that of the second-placed team, the Dolphins, based in Moreton Bay where prices rose 9.9%.

The Gold Coast Titans would be sitting in third place with 8.3% home price growth, despite the team narrowly avoiding the wooden spoon in the NRL this year on points differential after a season in which coach Des Hasler was sacked with a year left on his contract.

The Penrith Panthers would have snagged a top four spot with home prices rising 7.2% – a better result than the reigning premiers managed in the regular season this year, having scraped into the finals with a seventh-place finish.

The top eight would be rounded out by the Brisbane Broncos, the Canterbury-Bankstown Bulldogs, the Cronulla-Sutherland Sharks and the Wests Tigers. Of these teams, only the Tigers missed out on a top eight finish in the regular season.

Meanwhile, the New Zealand Warriors would have been awarded the home price growth wooden spoon, sitting at the bottom of the table with price growth of just 0.2% – well below their sixth-place finish on the NRL ladder this year.

This year’s minor premiers, the Canberra Raiders, would be sitting in second-last place after prices in the national capital grew just 1.4%.

The Melbourne Storm, who are strong contenders for this year’s premiership with a second-place finish this year, would also be languishing towards the bottom of the table, with prices up just 2.1% in the past 12 months.

Coincidentally, the Parramatta Eels would be sitting in the same place for house price growth and on-field performance, landing in 11th place with price growth of 3.6%.

The data analyses home price growth in the past 12 months across the geographical area each team traditionally represents.

For most teams, the data reflects price movements for each team’s respective local government area (LGA) or SA4 region, while teams that represent a whole capital city, such as Melbourne and Canberra, data is at the Great Capital City Statistical Area (GCCSA) level.

Data for the two merger teams, St George Illawarra and Wests Tigers, reflects the change in values across the combined regions these teams represent – the Georges River and Wollongong LGAs for St George Illawarra, and the Inner West and Outer South West SA4 regions of Sydney for Wests Tigers.

For the New Zealand Warriors, data from NZ government-owned valuer QV has been used.

Why Townsville is kicking goals in the property market

Townsville real estate agent Lachlan Coote of Northern Realty — a former NRL player who won a premiership with the Cowboys in 2015 — said strength in the local market was a result of competition from investors, locals and people relocating to the city.

“Investors have driven most of it, especially the lower end of the market,” he said. “But there’s a good mixture of both local buyers and people coming up from down south.”

Townsville’s relative affordability was a key driver, Mr Coote said. The median house price is $608,000 and the median unit price is $432,000, PropTrack data shows.

“To think we’ve jumped about 80% in the past 5 years and are still an affordable regional city, that’s an attraction in itself,” he said.

Are property prices and NRL rankings related?

Although Townsville’s strong result in the property market wasn’t echoed on the footy field this year, Mr Coote said there was a change in the atmosphere around town when the Cowboys were playing well.

“In 2015, the town was buzzing,” he said. “Every home game everyone was out and about.”

“With Townsville, the mood swings on the performance of the Cowboys.”

“You feel it at the time as a player, and they would have felt that this year with their performances.”

REA Group executive manager of economics Angus Moore said home price growth and on-field performance weren’t closely related, with the high placement of Queensland teams in the home price growth ladder due to the state’s robust property market.

“Queensland has among the strongest performing housing market over the past five years,” he said.

“While there’s a lot of factors, an important part of the story has been interstate migration: we’ve seen a lot of people moving from other states to Queensland.”

“While that’s always the case, it has been stronger through the past five years or so that was true during much of the 2010s.”

The post What the NRL ladder would look like if it was based on property price growth appeared first on realestate.com.au.