For the first time since early 2022, buyers are telling us that they’ve finally got choice. It’s not unusual for some buyers to be inspecting seven or eight properties on a Saturday.
When buyers feel like they have choice, they also tend to feel like they have more time, or less urgency.
If I wait another week or month, I will have even more choice.
Sounds reasonable.
However, it can be a potential trap. Always waiting for the next best thing… The ‘grass is greener’ syndrome.
The same can be said when buyers think that the market is flat, prices aren’t rising, or are even falling.
There’s no FOMO (fear of missing out) if prices are stagnant or declining.
If I wait another three months or six months, I might be able to get a better deal.
The Melbourne market has been rather flat lately, with some modest declines in 2022 followed by some modest gains in 2023.
Flat is good. A stable market helps confidence. You know where you stand… free from frenzy.
You don’t want to buy just before a downturn, nor do you want to buy when things are steeply ramping up, or worse – at the peak.
Once the market heats up and FOMO comes back, buyers start to compromise big time and often end up buying properties that aren’t suitable just because they are fearful if they wait another few months they will be priced out.
So perhaps the best time to buy is when there is a reasonable amount of choice and the market is stable (and ideally, about to take off again).
No one knows where prices are heading in the next 12 months, let alone five years.
What we do know is that in Stonnington right now, there is finally a bit of choice for buyers, and it’s a good, stable market to be buying into.
Sure, some properties are selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars above reserve. This happens in any market.
But there are also some great properties selling for very reasonable prices – some even selling for less today than they sold for in the previous peaks of 2021 and 2017 when FOMO was in overdrive.
Also, the current seemingly healthy stock levels may not last. We are experiencing a very condensed selling window of just five auction weekends from the opening market until Easter.
In other words, we are seeing seven or eight weeks of stock being condensed into five weeks this Q1.
There will be a number of new listings this week and next week, then it could be relatively quiet in terms of new stock until the May auction campaigns commence, after the school holidays.
Your dream home might be just around the corner…
Or it might already be on the market.
Feature Property: 6 Pridham Street, Prahran
David Sciola 