Where have all the deals gone? Last week saw Expressions of Interest closing here, there and everywhere, resulting in…
Silence, mostly. Hardly a peep from the agents and rarely a SOLD sign to be seen.
Those which we closed were almost all behind closed doors and that’s the way they must remain; but the rest are cause for ponder.
Are the agents out-clevering themselves?
Each EOI now seems to come with its own wrinkles. Each a little more complex than the last and that complexity breeds distrust and distrusting buyers are about the least welcome news that a vendor needs. Buyers will look but not touch and who can blame them?
The few EOIs which have made it across the line have come after one serious offer has prompted another and that is not the way EOIs are supposed to work; but how can rules be broken when there are none?
Added to the complexity there’s been a fair rash of unreality. Ranges being quoted that are 15 and 20% below vendor’s (real or unreal) expectations. At this level that creates gaps that can run into millions and that means a frequently impossible leap to the champagne corks.
Then there are some with properties to sell who are in no hurry at all. They may have four or five top end homes to move between and, presumably, just enjoy the company of willing agents.
Sense? Not financial. Ego? Maybe. Buyer strategy? Walk away. There will be other properties.
What’s coming?
We are expecting an ice-age winter with little sign of a thaw before late July. Top-end offers will mostly be those stale EOIs.
The cleverer or more desperate vendors will choose to meet the market now or become used to nothing doing.
Post-winter? We have one high-flying client who believes the government (and Reserve Bank?) “…will let the market run for a couple of years to boost construction and spending, so I’m going long on property.”
For our other clients’ sake, we hope he is wrong.
On the hustings
26 Jolimont Terrace and as many as 100,000 visitors a week sold for $4.1 million.
6 Higham Road, Hawthorn East is apparently making an appointment with a wrecking ball after the arrival of a black Bentley and a Chinese high-roller with some of the most original (via an interpreter) bidding that we have seen. He began by jumping to $5 million from $4.7 million then topped the $5,010,000 bid which followed with a leap to $5,200,000. Game over.
32 Avoca Street All quiet at $2.8 million and sold a heartbeat later for … $220,000 more? People, the market had spoken and wasn’t going any higher. You knew that. If you had only waited a day or two the vendor would almost certainly have come to meet you.
In those situations, time is on your side. Thus endeth the lesson.
David Morrell