TG

A chill has descended. A chill unlike others; for this one has a sound track. It can be heard in the more and more desperate tones of auctioneers making more and more vendor bids. Goody. Smiles are appearing on the faces of buyers. Their choice is growing while their competition is lessening. There is, as […]

End of the day. A gargle of estate agents around a bar: “Mate, it’s a wonderful market!” “It’s never been stronger mate!” “Look at the clearance rates mate!” “Mate, I gotta tell you …” All true. All true. Depending on where you look. But we’re seeing some cracks, some signs of a market that has

While local real estate preoccupations have been rushing around in ever-diminishing circles (“It’s supply/demand.” “It’s interest rates.” “It’s the Chinese.” “It’s negative gearing.” “It’s land banks.” “It’s [insert your answer here].”) we have been rushing around looking for answers in one big circle: the world. The US? The top end in New York and Washington.

(Originally posted March 29, 2010) Yup. Us. Last week we were announcing cracks in the edifice of the top end. This week we, and anyone else foolish enough to venture an opinion, have been slapped in the face by the cold wet fish of reality. Where’s your Nostradamus when you need him? And if you

What a difference a couple of weeks can make! Yes, the worm is showing signs of turning and, no, that can’t be put down to the Head of the River, the Grand Prix, Easter and school hols around the corner or increased levels of stock. We sense a change. To paraphrase an old ad: the

The weekend’s activities were … mixed. Even with a reported clearance rate of 87%, the top end of the market is still digesting the leftovers from last year and much remains unsold. Where competition is strong is well down the ladder: investment apartments between $500,000 and $750,000, family houses between $750,000 and $1.5 million (where

It was the first big weekend of the year and it had all the signs of going off with a bang, but… That was deafening. And there are some worrying echoes. First, the big bang: There’s still a wave of pent-up demand, much of it dating back to last year. Once people have made the

Welcome to this year. Hope it’s a good one. “What is the market doing?” “What will the market do?” If we had a dollar for each time … Let’s start the year with a clarification: there is no Melbourne market. There’s a whole series of them. And then there are markets within markets. Sometimes in

As predicted over the past few weeks, the very pointy end of the Brighton market has failed to deliver. A swag of top end properties remains unsold despite serious amounts of vendor’s money being spent on marketing and the very best efforts of some of Bayside’s finest agents. The tom toms are telling us that

According to Google Maps, 10 hours and 12 minutes and 881km of the Hume is what separates Melbourne and Sydney. That’s not all, folks. Consider AFL and NRL, restaurants and theatre, beaches and not. And … and a lot of stuff. Also, underlined and underlined and underlined this year has been the differences in top-end