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Big Numbers
We had 37 groups inspect 2 Oak Grove, Malvern East on Saturday – a fully renovated family home on 740sqm with a pool. Around the corner, 47 groups inspected a contemporary three-bedroom townhouse on Darling Road. Big numbers! We always see a spike in inspection numbers in the first few weeks following Australia Day. The…
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New Year, New Market?
Welcome back to our first New Listings email of 2023! For those loyal readers who tune in every week, we really appreciate your support. For those new subscribers, hopefully you find some value in my weekly ruminations, insights, and observations on the Stonnington property market. Given my media and communications background, the corporate office has…
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2 Oak Grove, Malvern East
$3,000,000 – $3,300,000 Bespoke family luxury in exclusive Malvern East pocket In a coveted Malvern East address, this architectural masterpiece blends timeless c1931 Art Deco grandeur with a sweeping contemporary transformation, delivering a bespoke designer oasis zoned for modern family living across two levels. Grandiose proportions from its period origins are doubled throughout this premium…
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They don’t ring a bell at the bottom
Last year was a seller’s market. A strong seller’s market. Arguably the strongest seller’s market in decades. We watched in disbelief as prices for houses in Stonnington jumped 30 percent within 18 months – from Q2 2020 to Q3 2021. I’m not saying all houses went up by 30 percent, but many did. Some went…
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Popularity Contest
As Victorians hit the polls this week the property market presses on in the final run in to Christmas. Like politics, real estate is a bit of a popularity contest. Each sales campaign is, in effect, its own poll, with buyers either voting yea or nay. Buyers first vote with their eyeballs. Attractive, well-priced properties…
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Why median house price data are misleading
The Age (Domain) published an article on Saturday, ‘The Melbourne suburbs where property values are back to pre-pandemic levels’, which cited median house price data for various suburbs whose prices are lower today than they were in March 2020… Or so they say. Leading the fall, apparently, was Windsor, where prices are down 14.1% from March 2020 to today.…
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Only the buyer’s opinion matters
Providing advice on value is one of our primary roles as sales agents, but it’s also one of the most difficult. Why? Because it’s an art, not a science, and we sometimes get it wrong. Even with supreme market knowledge, the best data, and the accrued experience of walking through thousands of homes, all we…
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2022 v 2021
There was a Thursday in October 2021 when I called six Zoom auctions in a row, on the hour. All six of them sold with multiple bidders. Team Fetter/Sciola sold 32 properties in October 2021, our busiest month ever. By far. It was an extraordinary market. A once in a lifetime market fuelled by cheap…
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Why is the rental market so strong?
The rental market took a big hit during COVID. Vacancy soared, particularly in the CBD and Docklands, where international students disappeared almost overnight. Young people moved home with their parents. City folk fled to the countryside and seaside. There were no overseas visitors, ex-pat professionals relocating, or gap-year Brits coming to backpack the east coast,…
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Top Five Market Trends
If you are not an active participant in the market today you would be forgiven for thinking that market conditions are poor, that it is not a great time to sell, and still not the best time to buy. And while this would put you in line with most media commentary, you’d be wrong. Sure,…
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Buyer’s Advocates
We have daily interactions with buyer’s advocates. We get along very well. It’s a reciprocal relationship between sales agents and advocates – they rely on us for the scoop on upcoming listings and off market opportunities (a big selling point for them). And we go to them to find qualified buyers for our stock. We…
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Two to Tango
We saw a decent number of new listings launch last week but talk to any active buyer and they’ll tell you that choice is still very limited, particularly for anything better than decent. And time is running out to secure a property in 2022. Cup Weekend is four weeks away, so there won’t be many…
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How Much is a Car Space Worth?
This is a perennial buyer question and one that is quite difficult to answer. It depends on the expectations of the buyers, which is affected by the location, price, availability of on street parking and proximity to amenity including public transport. Few people are expecting off street parking for a tiny period house next to…
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What have house prices done in the last 10 years?
There is an old rule of thumb that house prices double every seven to 10 years. Over generations, this rule of roughly seven percent annual growth holds up fairly well. But as with all markets, timing is everything. It depends on which seven to 10 year period you are looking at. And while some houses…
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Twilight Auctions
It’s springtime in Melbourne and while it might be premature to put the puffy jacket away or switch the air conditioner mode to ‘cool’ just yet, the weather is improving, and the days are getting longer. October and November are traditionally the busiest auction months of the year, with the ‘Super Saturday’ before the Melbourne…
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What to expect this spring
Saturday was our first auction weekend of spring, and the mood was positive with the pear trees in full blossom, the sun shining, and strong numbers at our opens and auctions. Team Fetter/Sciola had three auctions scheduled. Two sold before at the top of the range, and one sold on Saturday under stiff competition with…
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Buyer Stereotypes
We deal with a lot of buyers. Hundreds per week. Thousands per year. There are over a million contacts in our database across the Jellis Craig network. If you’ve ever enquired on or inspected a Jellis Craig property, you’re in there. One of our fundamental roles as real estate agents is qualifying buyers. For a…
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Bucking the Trend
There were more surprisingly strong results last week, bucking the trend of the now widely reported price falls across Melbourne. A family home in Malvern sold (with a competitor) for half a million dollars above the range. It was a good house. It wasn’t exceptional or newly renovated, but it was attractive, well positioned, conservatively…
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David Sciola 