Category: Melbourne Real Estate Boom

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 […]

Looking back on our February report card I would say the Stonnington market received a solid B+ for the first selling month of the year. Clearance rates held up nicely (79% for the month according to the REIV) as did prices, with some highly competitive Auctions and knock out results, particularly in Armadale, where we […]

I’ve written before about how clearance rates can be misleading, but ostensibly Team Fetter/Sciola are at 100% clearance from our first 10 auctions of 2022. A clean sweep! That is to say, we have sold 10 out of 10 properties at or before Auction. The market must be flying, right? Well, yes, 10 out of […]

If I had a bitcoin for every time I’ve heard this from a local home owner I’d be flying private and definitely not working Saturdays. “But, David, prices never really go down in Armadale”, they say. Wrong. Unless you take a 10 year time period, then maybe, yes, in 10 year blocks prices have never […]

Saturday was abuzz with buyers. Two new listings from our office saw over 40 groups inspect the first open. That’s a lot. Like the weekend before, the median number at opens was 15-20 groups, which is higher than our long term average of around 10. Our first auction for the year was highly competitive, with […]