TG

The portents suggested a quiet weekend: the Anzac Day holiday, few upper-end auctions (and none at the top) and a chill-factor steep enough to keep you huddled in your igloo. Together they promised a big weekend of nothing much. Yet, down below $3 million it was bidders, bidders everywhere and hardly a hammer to drop. […]

Suddenly it seemed like same time last year. They grew like mushrooms overnight. Buyers were everywhere. But … why? We don’t know for sure, but everywhere we went (and, while not top end, all were good properties) there were between four and eight serious bidders. Our suspicion is that there was a small horde of

The see-saw continues! Gloom at the very top, cheer below that and some signs of life by the bay. Take a quick glance at the papers and you may conclude – amid all the chest thumping about clearance rates (are you there, REIV?) – that the worst is now behind us. Try telling that to

Excitement, anticipation, hope, dissatisfaction, frustration, lack of depth with lists, contempt, delight and large helpings of “What if?” And that’s just the start of the footy season. You should see what’s been happening in real estate. Last week, the top end was full of promises with a mixed bag of lollies the result. What was

Let us answer some frequent questions and help you make sense of all this … Are shares and top end property now aligned? Sorta. In the sense that cashed-up offshore investors are now picking over the bargain bins created by falling markets and a depressed AUD. In the share market, it’s Rio, et al; in

Somewhere on a planet far, far away, where many top-end vendors and their agents still live, things are growing a little queasy, a little uneasy. There are agents wandering lonely as clouds and in need of vigour transplants, wondering where their enthusiasm went (OK, they’re suffering from shock) while their vendors are having a Bex

The weekend was the quietest long weekend in 25 years. Uncertainty, lack of quality stock and a financial crisis or three which all added up to … nothing. The only trend in evidence was indecision. Even the usually-active holiday house market was moribund. Buyers are waiting (tigers in long grass) for opportunities which vendors are

The world real estate market is dying a death. From LA to Leningrad (with stopovers in Ireland, UK, Europe – and Asia if you’re going the long way) there’s little to be heard but wailings and gnashings of teeth. Forced sales and more up-facing bellies than can be found on the beaches of San Tropez.

… not very much at all; at least at the top end. Up here in the stratosphere, the holiday continues. On the evidence so far, useful predictions have become almost impossible. Stock levels are probably the lowest they have been in 30 years. That cannot last, but while it does reading the market is the

The real estate industry has now turned out the lights and toddled off to bed; hoping and praying that the last six months were just a nightmare. Faint hope. Reality still looms like a wolf at the door. What are we hearing? “The banks have their feet on the throats of hundreds of clients whose