It turns out not even six lockdowns (now over 200 days) can hinder the roaring real estate market of Melbourne.
In fact, it feels like these lockdowns are spurring things on by creating bottlenecks in an already tight supply environment and thereby compounding the demand pressure and buyer urgency that has been the undercurrent since late 2020.
Team Fetter/Sciola faced a frenetic week since the announcement of lockdown selling seven quality homes in the last six days at an average sale price of $2,600,000.
49 Jordan Street, Malvern, 32 Trinian Street, Prahran and 30 Hume Street, Armadale all sold under strong competition with multiple bidders via Zoom auctions and crowds of up to 80 logging in from the comfort of their homes.
49 Earl Street, Windsor, 5 Albert Street, East Melbourne and 11 Barrow Place, Burnley all sold pre-auction, with the latter two only having been on the market for 10 days.
Albert Street was purchased by a Geelong buyer who hadn’t physically inspected but was confident enough to buy it off the back of a three minute walk through video shot by me.
We also had an off market sale in Armadale in the mid $4m’s.
With the speed of transactions and the decisiveness of buyers these days it now seems that three to four open inspections is more than enough time to meet your best buyers and see a competitive outcome. Two to three week campaigns are the new norm.
By necessity, we have departed from the traditional, structured four week campaigns ending in the public Saturday auction to now being far more agile.
Both buyers and vendors are willing to be flexible when it comes to timing and sales method.
Physical inspections are still essential but other than than everything else is TBC. Zoom auctions, FaceTime inspections, Sunday opens, everything is on the table.
As the dust settles on a great week of transactions now we wait until lockdown ends so we can facilitate in person inspections again and therefore get back to doing deals.
We have some terrific stock in the pipeline ready to launch as soon as possible.
A big thank you to all our clients and customers for your resilience, patience and support over a challenging and uncertain time.
David Sciola 