The "will they or won't they" debate about rising interest rates has failed to take the gloss from the house price boom across regional Australia.
Property analysts say only the lack of available housing in the country is holding back the rush from the city, not the fear of interest rate rises.
Country real estate agents say interest rates are so low a small rise would not impact sales, rather it was inventory.
CoreLogic says there is a trend of slowing growth across most regions of Australia after the heady days of 2021.
CoreLogic's research director, Tim Lawless, said January was traditionally a poor guidance to trends anyway given the low number of dales.
"As the volume of home sales moves out of seasonal lows, we should get a firmer reading on how 2022 is shaping up," he said.
"The early indication is that housing markets are starting 2022 with a similar trend to what we saw through late last year. Values are still broadly rising, but nowhere near as fast as they were in early 2021."
The annual change in national housing values reached a new cyclical high in January, with Australian dwellings up 22.4pc over the year; the highest annual rate of growth since June 1989.
The typical Australian home is now worth about $131,236 more than it was a year ago, according to CoreLogic.
Brisbane has recorded the highest annual growth rate across the capital cities, with housing values up 29.2pc.
But the big winner in 2021 was regional Australia which has started strongly again.
Regional Queensland (2pc) and regional South Australia (2.1pc) that led the pace of growth over the month, however every broad 'rest of state' region recorded at least a 1.2pc gain, demonstrating a depth of demand for regional housing.
Regional Australia's outperformance relative to the capitals has been a feature through most of this cycle to date, driven by a combination of higher demand and low levels of advertised supply, Mr lawless said.
Three of the eight capital cities are now recording a median house value over $1 million.
The performance gap between regional Australia and the capitals widened in January.
Over the past three months, the combined regionals index has recorded growth of 6.3pc compared with a 2.6pc rise in the combined capital city index.
Looking back at a record 2021, the strongest regional markets were still those in commuting distance to the cities such as the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven, Sunshine Coast and the Hunter Valley.
Mr Lawless said demonstrating the strength of demand across regional Australia, the January estimate of home sales was 57.9pc above the previous five-year average compared to the capital cities, where the sales activity was estimated to be 26.6pc higher than average.
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Chris McLennan
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
ACM national rural property writer based in Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Career journalist. Multi award winner.
