TG

People, the underquoting thing is now beyond ridiculous. Way past misleading and manipulative, it’s seriously stupid. One example, all too typical: “James*” (a disproportionate number of estate agents are called James) quotes “Around $1.5 million” and the reserve turns out to be over $2.2 million. James explains: “We didn’t want to exclude anyone.” Oh, James, what world […]

Listening to the real estate pundits is doing nothing for our nation’s sanity. Sydney prices go up 20%, most homes there are selling for $1m+ and that’s just the start? “China! China! China!” Hmmm. “It’s all out of whack. The average income cannot afford the average home.” Yet somehow … What the papers say It’s

Bubble, bubble. Is it all toil and trouble? (Sorry, Will.) The word of the week, of the month, of the year is bubble. Bubble or bust? Bubble or the new normal? At the top it’s now sounding more like pfft. There’s not a heap of choice, but that’s what happens when winter shows up. Everywhere

We’re living in the most upwardly-mobile real estate market since the late 80’s. Those who sold just six months ago are now in therapy—no-one saw this coming. And, now, there’s just one certainty: It has to calm down. That’s easy. The harder questions are when? And at what level? Our suspicion is that this isn’t

You’ve been reading it in the papers (if you still get those): Here a record, there a record, everywhere a record, record… Lack of choice=buyer frustration=hello chequebook. 57 Broadway, Camberwell: Well renovated Victorian on only 10,000sq feet: $6.35m 7 Power Avenue, Toorak: $4.6m 67 St Vincent Place: $1.5m over reserve: $4.2m … which is leading some would-be sellers

Ignore the whooping and hollering from further down the ladder, at the top it’s about as dead as it gets. Since Easter there’s been less activity than you would usually expect in the depths of January. Charlie Aitken of Bell Potter has been speaking of a perfect storm: Limited choice, low dollar, lower interest rates augmented by Chinese and

“Where the top end leads, the rest follows.” It’s been the way for 30 years. And with a vengeance since Christmas. But how high can it go? There are endless theories, but we’re running out of precedents. We’re now flying well above the fundamentals and up here there are no track records. On one hand it’s very

We’d love to say that the market has changed a gear and has entered a predictable new normal, but… We’ve seen bubbles before and the operative word is Pop (or, a few years ago when the banks got real: pffffft). What we’re seeing now is not agent hype or media gullibility. Prices really have jumped

When the talk among the agents moves from the iniquities of school fees and the scarcity of innocent parties ready to put their hands in their pockets to sunny thoughts around which side of the Equator beckons this winter, whether it should be a Merc or a Beemer and is Saville Row still the go,

It wasn’t how it’s meant to be. Everything’s supposed to go quiet in the week before the fellow in the red suit crashes down the chimney. Not last Christmas. Phones ran hot, sellers faced the reality that if they didn’t deal pre-Christmas it was all over, and suddenly the SOLD signs were going up. Never seen anything like it.