Author; David

Unpredictable, volatile, driven by emotion. You may recall learning in economics that markets are efficient and governed solely by the effects of supply and demand. This is nonsense. Especially for the real estate market. You just need to sit in on one of our post-auction negotiations to see that at the pointy end of a […]

There has been a lot of negativity in the media recently surrounding the property market. ‘Doom and gloom’ sells a lot more ad space than ‘reason and balance.’ I’d even call it fear mongering, the current conversation around interest rate hikes. I attended an excellent presentation on Tuesday by Domain’s Chief of Research & Economics, […]

Until yesterday, the last time the RBA lifted the cash rate was November 2010. You may recall seeing the news on your brand new iPhone 4, just a month after the Pies won the Grand Final rematch against the Saints. Time flies. The cash rate back then was 4.75%. Today it is a measly 0.35%. […]

When selling a home, time is not your friend. More time does not equate to more interest. Usually the inverse is true. The longer the days on market, the harder it is to get a great price. You don’t often hear someone saying, ‘we were on the market for 107 days and then someone came […]

I often get asked from buyers why would an owner sell off market? It’s very good question. And like most good questions, the answer is not a simple one. Carla and I sell more properties off market than most teams in Stonnington. Last year we sold 24, which works out to be roughly one in […]

Election day 2019 was the inflection point of our last market cycle. It was the bottom, the nadir, of a very challenging market correction that saw prices in Stonnington fall by as much as 10 to 20 percent from the November 2017 peak, with clearance rates wallowing in the 40’s and 50’s for many months. […]

I bite my tongue when buyers tell me they are “waiting for prices to come off” or “holding out for a better deal”. Trying to time the market is a fool’s game. It is impossible to do (intentionally). You might pick it purely by dumb luck. If so, well done! You are in the overwhelming […]

Buying or selling a home is a big deal, literally. Usually it’s the biggest financial transaction of one’s lifetime. There’s a lot of stress involved, a lot of money at stake. There is lot of friction to the transaction. Stamp duty for the average house in Armadale is around $150,000 and selling costs around $50,000… […]

In an often repeated survey around the world, over 90 percent of people believe they are “above average” drivers. Clearly there’s a disconnect from reality here as, by definition, 50 percent of people are below average drivers. Call it delusion, call it bias, call it cognitive dissonance. Call it what you will, we are fickle […]

Melbourne, and particularly Stonnington, is blessed with stunning architecture – thanks in part to the fabulous wealth created from the gold rush of the Victorian era. During the 1880s land boom, Melbourne purportedly held the crown as the richest city in the world. Some of Melbourne’s finest homes were built during this period, including the […]