Trends and Cycles in S ydney and M elbourne House Prices from 1880 to 2011

This article provides a series of indicative house and land prices for S ydney and M elbourne for 1880–1970, which, spliced to modern data, gives price series spanning 1880–2011. The broad trends highlight no significant movement in real prices to the 1950s followed by a persistent and significant trend rise in prices in the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty‐first century. Over this long period, there have been several cycles in house prices, the two most significant in the 1880s and an unfinished cycle in the 2000s.