The biggest increases in Greater Brisbane were not in the high-end market but in the middle to lower price bracket.

Logan Central topped the increases for the March quarter with 13.5 per cent while Acacia Ridge, Capalaba and Yeronga were all around 10 per cent.

The CoreLogic survey found Brisbane and Adelaide, where housing is relatively cheap, continued to shine as Australia’s best performers.

Of the 651 house markets analysed across the two cities, not one experienced a quarterly or annual decline in values. Minor falls in unit markets meant that less than 1 per cent of markets analysed in these cities saw a quarterly decline, CoreLogic said.

“Conditions across south east Queensland continue to be supported by strong interstate migration from those relocating from NSW and Victoria and the relatively affordable housing stock,” CoreLogic’s head of research Eliza Owen said.

“For those migrating from the southern states, a typical house in Brisbane was $857,000 in March, significantly less than Sydney’s median of $1.4 million.”

Houses across Brisbane rose by 6.7 per cent in the March quarter while units were up 4.6 per cent.

In Sydney, 38 per cent of dwellings in the survey recorded a decline in value, mostly in the house sector. Some falls were as high as 7 per cent.

In Melbourne, falls were experienced in 46 per cent of those surveyed with declines ranging from -6.4 per cent across houses in the inner-city suburb of Cremorne to a -0.01 per cent fall across houses in Boronia.

But the Grattan Institute said housing rents were a big factor in the national economy and the federal Budget’s handouts missing those in greatest need.

In a report published in The Conversation today, Grattan’s Brendan Coates and Joey Maloney said low-income renters were hard hit by rising rents.

“More than half suffer rental stress, meaning they spend more than 30 per cent of their income on rent,” the report said.

“One-third have less than $500 of savings on hand in the event of an emergency.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has responded to complaints about rent by saying the “best way to support people renting a house is to help them buy a house” and has increased the number of grants available under the First Guarantee Scheme.

“The expanded scheme will help some Australians buy their first home earlier, but for everyone else looking to buy a house, the extra demand created by the scheme risks pushing up prices even higher,” the authors said.

Commonwealth Rent Assistance had not kept pace and would need to increase by 40 per cent would bring it back to where it should be but this would come at a cost of $2 billion a year.