So what was that all about?
The tide came in, the tide went out, the tide came in…
It was that kind of year.
For buyers, the best time this year was November last year; but that’s stretching it.
This year this year went off like a cracker. Buyers everywhere and wallets agape.
And then vendors started getting greedy and setting reserves high above the clouds. That peaked in the weeks after the Cup when there were tennis courts everywhere and not a player in sight. The ad budgets alone would have solved J. Hockey’s deficit problem.
Us? Best year yet. But enough about us (and in any event we can’t say too much about much of what we do) (unlike some agents who hit the Press Release button before the SOLD sign goes up).
The Big Q
What’s up next?
What do J. Hockey, G. Stevens and A. Dollar have in store?
Significantly irrelevant is the contribution of K. O’Dwyer, MP. The parliamentary inquiry into foreign real estate investment produced little more than a large pile of stale paper.
What’s Been Big?
- overseas interest, particularly in land at the top end and in suburbs such as Canterbury and Balwyn. Often Chinese nationals.
- the labyrinth between offer and contract. Verbal offers being quoted which may or may not be adhered to. It’s blindfold poker and there are agents who should know better
- buyers keeping the merry-go-round in motion. Those who called St Georges Road home, for instance, upping stakes for Towers Road and pocketing $5m+ in change. $23.7m in, $18.3m out. You can get a nice lunch for that.
Wilting Flowers
So many homes that have been put out for offer at 20% or more above where reality lives. And they’ll still be living there well into ’15.
Try Hard of The Year Award: 750 Orrong Road. Had the whole phone book of Upper End agents listing it before, we hear, truth set in late last week at something less than $20m which is a nice discount from “mid-20s”.
The See You Next Christmas Award has been granted to the current and probably long-term owner of 2 Glenbervie Road. Offered via EOI at a quoted $6m+ with “Interest at $6-6.5m” it is eventually revealed that the asking price is $8 million. Yes. Really.
“Had to Have It”
74 Caroline Street. Flew out the door at $12.5m when even the Paris End of S Yarra has rarely hit $9m. Another e.g. of higher prices coming within the first weeks of a property hitting the market. When it drags on, buyers tend to stick to their guns.
Apartments Go Up
In every way. Downsizing Boomers cheerfully paying above Developers Dreams in South Yarra, St Kilda Road and East Melbourne. What was $13-14k/metre last year was $20k this.
It’s an Agent’s Life
- at the top end, there’s more and more being bought and sold without agents
- more and more is off-market
- EOIs have holes in them
- private auctions are comedy festivals
- prehistoric agents run top end auctions into rock walls
- dummy offers are ruining dumb agents’ reputations
- some new kids on the block are doing just fine
- private is meant to be private (a lesson learned in public)
The Rumour Has It
“We’re holding an offer of $25m.”
That was last year. It sold this year for under $20m.
Talk, Talk, Talk
It’s conversation, not collusion, but buyers are talking to buyers and swapping information like never before. And outing agents who out-point Pinocchio. We know who they are, we know they’re being crucified across dinner tables and we know it’s costing them in very large ways.
And So It Went …
So here’s hoping the break is good for you and all your bells jingle.