20 August – MARKET COMMENTARY, REAL ESTATE, MARKET UPDATE

Keeping Calm and Carrying On

Despite the interruption of Level 3, the property market is “keeping calm and carrying on”. In fact, the word “calm” is probably not quite correct. Things are “busy”. The pull back and withdrawal of buyer activity felt with our first lock down is not there this time and the general attitude from most buyers, sellers and market commentators is that the market will keep going positively despite what is going on outside of it.

MARKET SNAPSHOT

We have seen good Auction clearance rates with an average of around 70% and some offices having up to 90% success (Milford Harcourts for example).

Days on market has seen a serious shift from the previous few months and this is primarily due to all the delayed listings from the first lockdown being sold and cleared giving us some more typical selling periods now around the 35-37 day mark.

Prices are rebounding well and confidently but not running away. The outlook for the rest of the year is strong confident growth with periods of stabilised price holding while we embrace a few economic changes and the looming election period.

Interest rates keep dropping and with talks of the OCR moving into negatives the outlook is that they may fall even further.

A number of banks are now offering 5 year rates under 3% making this a very low risk environment for mum and dad investors to fix and hold with predicted rents to rise through population growth over the coming years.

If I were a Seller

If I were a seller I would get on the market now or leave it until post election as we will have a good 6 week peak selling period before xmas.

If I were a Buyer

If I were a buyer I would commit and get into property now. If you like it and it services your lifestyle and what you are looking for then don’t hesitate, other buyers won’t and prices won’t fall away so stop waiting for them to.

Sell First or Buy First

I have had a number of owners in the last couple weeks raise their concern about finding the right home if they commit to selling first.

I feel the current market is a low stock market. Selling and getting at least fair market value is not the hard part. If you sell first, finding the right home that you are not compromising on just to get into something before the looming settlement date is a bigger problem. So simple advice. Buy first, don’t sell first. When you find the right thing commit to securing it and secure a longer settlement date. Something around 8 weeks plus. This will give you plenty of time to get a sale on your property. As long as you take a conservative view on your property’s value then you will never go wrong. We find the people who make a buying decision, in best case price scenarios, of their home value that needs to be sold are the ones that get it wrong or find themselves in trouble.

Of course when you come to sell we shoot for the stars and try and maximise the sale price. If you take a business approach and be conservative on what you need to sell for to make that transition of the purchase you have undertaken, then the risk associated with buying first and selling second dissipates.

Happy to always talk real estate with anyone anytime, so if you have some questions or want to talk over a coffee, zoom meeting etc just reach out.