T.E.T.

The auction opening weekend for 2008 can only be described as a bit of a dud. Next to nothing on offer at the top end and even off-market private sales have trickled to a halt. The top end won’t really be tested until it’s put under the pump next weekend. Even then, there is still […]

We’re back and trust that you had a good New Year. It’s the opening of the season and the market has many similarities to the Australian cricket team: some good individual performances but generally lacklustre. But not at the very top end. We have already seen three very large off market transactions which have produced

So that was the year’s last real hurrah. Next weekend offers slim pickings and a few vendors wandering lonely as clouds, still hoping, and wondering how their expections and the market’s could be so far apart. Over-enthused agents? Where was the zing of recent months? Not a lot of it about over the weekend –

HO, HO, HO. Santa has arrived early and his great big sack is full of presents for some vendors. The top end again proved Toorak to be Number One with an off-market sale in Towers Road of a house on around 16,000 square feet for $11.2 million (and it wasn’t a mansion). Santa is also

It’s Kamikaze time in Melbourne real estate! The panic to get on board was everywhere over the weekend. We called it last week: the market was more solid than the government. Kevin 07 (well done Kev ? we hope you bring the market to its knees; it needs something to slow down the freight train)

Estate agents love the mushroom principle (if you haven’t been there before, it relates to keeping you in the dark and feeding you effluent). If you had to rely on published results, you wouldn?t be able to buy anything, or understand the quirky movements in the market or its strengths and weaknesses. Last week there

The Top End is proving to be market which is impervious to anything it doesn’t want to hear. Interest rates up? Not a blip. Kevin 07? G’day Kev. Some evidence (as if you needed it): 13 Moorakyne Avenue, Malvern ? a good north-facing 2-storey 4-bedroom family home. Three bidders took it to $4.625 million against

It’s Melbourne’s Long, Long Weekend and the start of a silly week – and irrefutable evidence of just how quickly and how fast the top end has moved over the last few months. Land value per square foot is the true litmus test of the direction and mood of the market. On Saturday, 14 Kent

The market survived its first real test on the weekend and seems to have lost none of its steam; but there are some signs that the future may be cooler – the proportion of buyers to properties for sale could be starting to swing. There was more to choose from, but not so many underbidders

The weekend’s clearance rates were over 80%. But can they fly that high for much longer? There are properties at the top end being passed in without a bid while some vendors’ reserves are running ahead of what buyers are prepared to pay. While we can’t yet say the market has plateaued, the frantic bidding