It's official: the price of the average freestanding home in an Australian capital city is now a number with seven digits.

New data in Domain's Quarterly House Price Report shows that the median combined capital house price is now just over $1.06 million – up dramatically from $850,000 in September 2020.

Year-on-year that represents growth of more than 25 per cent, smashing all existing records and outstripping the growth of units more than three times over.

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According to Domain's Chief of Research Dr Nicola Powell, the main factor shovelling coal into the property furnace was the simple fact that more Australians were ready and willing to buy a home than there were those ready to sell.

"House and unit prices continue to beat records nationally due to lockdown activity rebounds in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, high household savings and the ongoing demand from Australians to buy a property," Dr Powell said.

"Demand continues to outstrip supply across a majority of the cities however rapid price growth and affordability issues are likely to shift demand in 2022.

"Price growth has slowed from earlier in 2021 but it is higher than last quarter."

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In the most expensive capital city of Sydney, house prices rose by roughly $1100 a day during 2021, taking the median price up $400,000 to a wallet-busting $1.6 million.

At 33.1 per cent growth, this is Sydney's steepest annual rate of growth on record.

Dr Powell said wildly upward prices are beginning to hurt the bottom end of the market.

"House prices have grown four times faster than units over the past year, a divergence that has created a record price gap with houses now double the price of a unit," she said.

"The rapid escalation in price is proving to be a significant financial barrier to entry for buyers and upgraders against a backdrop of low wage growth. Housing affordability will continue to weigh on demand throughout 2022."

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While not as stratospheric as Sydney, other capital cities also enjoyed record gains.

Melbourne's median house price is now a record $1.1 million, Brisbane's is now $792,065 and Adelaide's is a record $731,547.

"Current demographic trends will continue to support housing demand with more people arriving into Greater Adelaide than leaving," explains Dr Powell.

"South Australia has been one of the states to benefit from the flow of Australians that have sought to either escape lockdown, embrace remote work culture, or return to their home state."

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Every single capital city recorded year-on-year growth in 2021, while only Darwin failed to edge higher in the December quarter. The median house price in the top end capital is now $645,487 – only slightly more expensive than the cheapest capital in the country in Perth, where the median house price is $612,348.

In Hobart, where buyers could have easily scooped a property for under half a million five years ago, the median house price is now $752,110 – a staggering 34.6 per cent year-on-year growth.

"Hobart's streak of record-breaking house prices hit a milestone over the last quarter by surpassing $700,000 for the first time. With the lowest average wages of all the states we can expect that entry-level buyers who are on a local average wage will find it increasingly difficult to enter the housing market," Dr Powell said.

"Values have risen sharply across all house price points suggesting a broad spectrum of buyers are active.

"Home hunters will find buying conditions to be fierce as the number of homes for sale is well below the five-year average, and while stock is starting to build, it remains tight."

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Australia's capital city median house prices*

*Domain December 2021 Quarterly House Price Report

The information provided on this website is general in nature only and does not constitute personal financial advice. The information has been prepared without taking into account your personal objectives, financial situation or needs. Before acting on any information on this website you should consider the appropriateness of the information having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs.

Fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workers have been treated to a lightning show in Western Australia's north as a tropical storm rolled through.

Monsoonal rains hit the Kimberly region overnight and, in the Pilbara, a broad trough produced an impressive lightning display.

The storm lasted a few hours, bringing thunder, wind, and rain over the region.

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FIFO worker Simar Tegh managed to capture the lightning display on his phone.

"I've been up here for a while and I've never seen something like that and even if I did, I've never been able to capture it on my camera," he said.

"So, I think yeh the stars aligned on that one."

More storms are expected this week in the Pilbara as the monsoon trough becomes more active.

A monkey with ghostly white circles around its eyes is among 224 new species listed in the World Wildlife Fund's latest update on the greater Mekong region.

The conservation group's report, released Wednesday, highlights the need to protect the rich biodiversity and habitats in the region, which includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Myanmar.

The species listed were found in 2020 but last year's report was delayed. The monkey is called the Popa langur, for it lives on the steep hillsides of the extinct Mt. Popa volcano in Myanmar.

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It was the only new mammal. There are also dozens of newly identified reptiles, frogs and newts, fish and 155 plant species, including the only known succulent bamboo species, found in Laos.

The Mekong region is a biodiversity hotspot and home to tigers, Asian elephants, saola — an extremely rare animal also called the Asian unicorn or spindlehorn and thousands of other species.

Including this latest list, scientists have identified more than 3,000 new species in the region since 1997, the WWF said.

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Scientists used measurements and samples from museum collections to compare and identify key differences with features of the newly discovered animals and plants, the report said.

Studying such differences can help determine the range of species and threats to their survival, Thomas Ziegler, a curator at the University of Cologne's Institute of Zoology, said in introducing the report.

Identifying new species is tricky, though, and sometimes can only be determined using a variety of methods, such as frog calls and genetic data used to distinguish the Cardamom leaf little frog, found high up in the Cardamom mountains in a wildlife refuge.

Some species are found in more than one country, including the bright orange twin slug snake, which consumes slugs.

The Popa langur was identified based on genetic matching of recently gathered bones with specimens from Britain's Natural History Museum collected more than a century ago, the report said. Two main distinguishing characteristics were the broad white rings around its eyes and its front-pointing whiskers.

The WWF, working with Fauna and Flora International, caught images of the monkeys using camera traps in 2018. FFI reported the discovery late last year.

The monkey is a candidate to be listed as a critically endangered species on the Red List of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the report said, since only 200-250 are thought to survive in the wild, in a handful of places.

Underscoring the urgency of such work, more than 38,000 of the 138,000 species the IUCN tracks are threatened with extinction.

A new type of begonia with reddish flowers and a berry-like fruit also was found in the uplands of Myanmar, where illegal mining and logging have become an increasingly dire threat in the country, which is in the midst of political turmoil following a military takeover a year ago.

Despite human encroachments on tropical forests and other wild zones, much of the Greater Mekong is still little explored and each year dozens of new species are found — a glimmer of hope as so many species go extinct.

Not all new species are found deep in jungles. One of the new plant species is a ginger plant called "stink bug" for its pungent odour similar to big beetles Thais use to make a kind of chilli dipping paste served with rice, the report said.

It was found in northeastern Thailand, in a plant shop.