Coastal areas such as Wollongong are enjoying a rise in values as buyers are priced out of capital city markets. Picture: Cameron Richardson.

Regional house values increased by 2.4 per cent during the first quarter of this year, according to the latest CoreLogic RP Data home value index.

While the regional results varied from state to state, the report revealed New South Wales regional markets were the strongest performer during the quarter.

CoreLogic RP Data analyst Cameron Kusher said coastal and tourism towns had helped lifted the regional market results.Source:Supplied

It said regional coastal and lifestyle markets, as well as major regional service centres which

were sheltered from the mining downturn, recorded much healthier housing market conditions.

CoreLogic RP Data analyst Cameron Kusher said the good regional market performance was being driven by coastal and tourism towns.

“The coastal and lifestyle markets are going to have a bigger influence on the index and I think that what we are finding is you are seeing growth in those larger regional centres linked to coastal lifestyle segments and that is really driving that increase that we are seeing,’’ he said.

Mr Kusher believed the trend would continue as more people bought investment properties in those markets and buyers were priced out of capital city markets.

“People being priced out of the capital cities are moving to some of these regional markets,’’ he said.

“So if it is Sydney they can’t afford they are looking at Wollongong or looking to Newcastle.

“In Victoria they are looking to Latrobe Valley or Geelong if they can’t afford to buy in Melbourne and obviously people in southeast Queensland may be looking for a bit more of a lifestyle moving to the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast.’’

Values were up in most capital city markets in April with the exception of Hobart and Darwin.

Sydney emerged as the best performer during the month with its values up by 2.4 per cent, but it was Adelaide which won out over the most recent quarter with values up by 4.5 per cent.

CoreLogic Hedonic Index April 2016.

Mr Kusher said the latest figures showed that the trend for capital gains had dropped from the peaks of 2015 but dwelling values continued to track higher across each of the capital cities over the first four months of this year.

He said the rate of growth had rebounded a little in April following a fairly flat March with dwelling values up nationally 1.7 per cent.

So far this year capital city property values have increased by 3.3 per cent.

Mr Kusher said Melbourne’s housing market continued to show some level of resilience to the slow down in value growth while Perth and Darwin were the only two capital cities to experience a drop in values in the past year with Perth values down 2.1 per cent and Darwin values 3.7 per cent lower.

“We all know that the market was pretty weak over the final quarter of last year but there has been some renewed confidence early this year,’’ Mr Kusher said.

“I guess it is a bit mixed, you are still seeing the rate of growth having slowed quite a bit in Sydney, it slowed a little in Melbourne, but generally speaking this year has clearly reversed what we saw over that final quarter of last year.’’