First, a disclaimer.
There’s little value in thinking of the real estate world as a “market”. It’s not. It’s individuals deciding when to buy or sell individual homes and how much should be paid. It’s why clearance rates may be the most quoted useless statistic anywhere outside of politics.
Every house is its own market. The agent-speak that insists “the market” is going up or down is no more than a tool used to persuade the nervous.
Then when is the right time to buy or sell?
The one person who can tell you that is right there in your mirror.
And, that said…
Is the market having a good lie down?
Yes and no. Most prices are still holding up. What’s changed is the number of people who are competing for what’s there; so there are fewer runaway results at auctions (one agent confided that they managed to attract just 37 bidders to 35 auctions).
There are also (perish the thought) agents who have promised their clients the outrageous and said clients can now find themselves having to sell in a hurry.
Hurry is a flawed strategy.
AAA Different World
Up here it’s still mostly business as usual—more buyers than homes for sale.
Top end land (as on Saturday) still has forests of hands a-waving. There are others which have been going over reserve by numbers well into the sevens.
Down Among The B’s and C’s…
… is where buyers are becoming thin on the ground.
62 Avoca Street, South Yarra had one lonely bidder. With no competition, it sold for $6m.
The Rise Of Off-market
It’s still growing. An interesting side-effect is that ad volumes at realestate.com.au and domain.com.au appear to be on the slide. It seems unlikely that real estate as we know it will still be sold in the same old ways for very much longer (time to sell your shares in BMW?).
Off-Off-Off Market? Yes.
More and more of the same homes being quietly nudged toward us by different agents—suggesting that the vendors are not committing and the agents are losing control.
Misery Of The Month
802 Orrong Road, Toorak. Rumour has it that it originally sold somewhere over $14m and that it was then re-sold much closer to $12m. The perils of foreign buyers.
Unhelpful Bit-Players
- FIRB. Missing in action (still).
- $1.5-3m vendors still shooting for moons while the banks are tightening Loan to Value Ratios