You’ve heard it, we’ve heard it: crowds of ex-pats being sardined into jumbos, coming home from points North along with mainland Chinese to buy all that top end property we locals can’t afford.
Really?
[pullquote] …we’d better check it out.”[/pullquote]Thought we’d better check it out.
Climbed onto a plane and headed to HK (and Damian on to China) to see some old clients and what’s Really Happening.
Spoke to many movers, shakers and market-makers.
Here, to save you the trip:
- mass expat migrations? Not happening
- masses of mainland Chinese floating in on oceans of cash? Ditto
- Chinese economy? Wait for a soft landing
- US Dollar? Watch it fall (and rise agin the AUD)
- real market driver? US Dollar
Those who are coming are typically looking for schools for their kids and somewhere safe for their capital. It’s no mass migration of top-end bargain hunters.
Meanwhile, back in the (un)real world, the locals are doing it for themselves:
- 35 Hampden Road, Armadale sold for $9.5 million. Sold. Quickly. So quickly that others ready to pay more were left out on the street. Whose advice was that?
- 17B Moorhouse Street, Armadale. Sensibly quoted at $2.2-2.3 million. Sold for $2.6 million. $400/foot. Toorak money. Why?
And while some vendors prowl with visions of last year’s prices and, presumably, hopes of trapping the unwary, over the road there are agents underquoting, underquoting, underquoting and still getting away with it. The government is impotent, the REIV complacent and trust – the underpinning of any healthy market – continues to wither.
How healthy can a market be when people cannot buy or sell when they don’t know what to trust?
Albert Park, anyone?
Yet, looming, are some powerful individuals with ways to out the grubby.
David Morrell
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