Author; David

Ascertaining value, or should I say, estimating value, is one of the hardest parts of our job. Valuing a property is an art, not a science. It would be far easier if it were more of a science. Zillow, the American online real estate marketplace, has based their business model on being able to accurately […]

The Victorian era ran from 1837 to 1901. The most relevant years when it comes to Stonnington’s architecture was the latter part of the ‘late Victorian’ period from roughly 1880 to 1900, when suburbs such as Prahran, Windsor, South Yarra, Armadale and Malvern were largely established. Fortunately, a great many of these beautiful homes still […]

When you’re spending one, two, three, four million dollars for a roof over your head, is it worth investing $600 on a building inspection to make sure said roof doesn’t fall on said head? It’s a question we get asked frequently and like all good questions the answer is long and nuanced. It’s not unusual […]

How did Victoria manage a 92% clearance rate on Saturday and a 97% clearance rate the weekend before, in the midst of a lockdown? Sure the market is strong at the moment, but 97% seems to good to be true… And it is. Clearance rates can be misleading at the best of times, let alone […]

I’m sure you’re sick of hearing about the lockdown at the moment so instead I thought it might be interesting to see what certain budgets buy you in Stonnington these days. Real estate has never been more expensive in Australia, in an absolute sense. Some of the sold prices in our market recently are eye-watering, […]

The State Government feels it’s time to play Robin Hood by slapping “rich” people, land owners and developers with more property taxes. 59% of State revenue already comes from the property industry but I guess this isn’t enough. We already have more speeding and red light cameras than any other city in the world so […]

I tuned into a Zoom presentation this morning hosted by Domain’s Senior Research Analyst, Nicola Powell. Her insights were, well, insightful. Here’s a brief summary for you… Houses are flying. Units are doing OK. Rentals are still on life support. So why oh why is the market so strong? And what does this look like […]

It felt more like early summer than late autumn on Saturday as I stood, uncomfortably warm in my suit and tie, in the middle of Gladstone Avenue, Armadale counting the bids as the flew rapidly at me. After a spirited battle covering a couple of hundred thousand dollars in 10’s and 5’s and eventually 1’s, […]

There’s a saying in real estate, ‘buy a bargain, sell a bargain’. It’s true. (Sales) history tends to repeat itself. With a few exceptions, a great property will be in demand each successive time it sells, and a compromised property will struggle each time it sells – independent of the current selling conditions. A property […]

In Victoria a ‘cooling off’ period applies to the purchase of residential property by private treaty. This means that if you purchase a property you can effectively walk away from the sale for whatever reason even after you’ve signed an executed contract and paid a deposit, within three ‘clear business days’. It sounds fairly straight […]