How rapidly things change.
Flash back to April last year and we couldn’t get an offer to save ourselves. Buyers were more than happy to sit on the side-lines and wait for the market to implode. But it never did.
Distressed sales? Didn’t happen.
Negative net immigration? Didn’t matter.
Recession? Not in Stonnington.
Banks predicting a 32% crash in property prices? Same banks now predicting a 30% surge.
Once again, everyone got it wrong. Me included. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we have no idea what will happen in the next 12 months.
However, if we focus on the now we just had our first proper weekend in the market and we were inundated with buyers on Saturday. Buyers were out in force!
45 groups inspected a $4m family home in Glen Iris
38 groups through a renovated single front in South Yarra
50 groups through a period family home in Hawthorn
And we actually thought our quotes were full on some of these properties and they might not receive much interest. Wrong again.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There’s a big difference between genuine buyers and genuine lookers… and just lookers.
Most of those new buyers we met on Saturday were in the latter two groups. Ready to look and dream. But not ready to bid or offer just yet.
So if you’re a genuine buyer please don’t get disheartened. A really busy open doesn’t necessarily mean the property is going to run away from you at auction.
If you like the house and it suits then ignore the noise, put a maximum value on it that you’re (un)comfortable with, and have a crack! You might be pleasantly surprised.
We have our first real litmus test on Saturday with our first Auctions for 2021.
I’ll let you know how they went in next week’s post.
David.
David Sciola 