Posted by admin on 3 May 2011
Latest info from the RP Data Rismark Home Value report shows Brisbane’s house prices have been the worst performing of any capital city over the past year, with our median down 6.8% in the year to the end of March.
Make no mistake, this is a buyer’s market. And this news is being met by some smiling home buyers, eager to jump into the market.
‘On the ground’ we know there’s pockets of Brisbane where property is cheaper now than it’s been in at least a couple of years, while we’ve also seen some inner-city transactions happen at pretty much 2010 prices. Some of the better properties, especially those with strong locations, are still receiving multiple buyer enquiries. Like they do in any market, the quality properties still generate good interest.
None of us knows with any certainty what drives price changes. But our observation is that small price reductions have only happened in recent months where needed to get buyers to act. Conservatism reigns, the peer networks and bank manager/solicitors/adviser/butcher are all telling would-be buyers there’s bargains to be had. Make an offer, shop around. And with fewer buyers making their move some keen sellers have dropped their price to get a quick result.
So should buyers hold off for prices to drop further? We just don’t see any great pressure on sellers to go any lower. Some have to sell due to growing, shrinking and splitting households. There are no doubt some who have financial pressure – but we really aren’t witnessing much of it at all. (We’re not hearing of any job losses, ABS report savings levels up.) And yes many sellers now realise that if they sell and buy again in the same market it doesn’t really matter where prices are sitting. They’re getting on with their plans. Dropping a couple of percent to get buyers over the line. If the property’s well-promoted it rarely takes much more.
So buyers waiting for gun-at-the-head, high pressure, dump and run property prices, may well be disappointed. None of us can pick bottoms (or peaks) of markets with any accuracy and the danger is it will turn before you know it.
There’s some good buying to be had right now, often with less competition. For home buyers, especially in inner-Brisbane, this might be as good as it gets.
Tags: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Brisbane house prices, buyer enquiry, home buyers Brisbane, RP Data, selling a house Brisbane, selling an apartment Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane's sales market | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 20 October 2010
Half of Australia’s home buyers say prices are on the rise, with most believing this is due to a shortage of places for sale.
In one of the largest research projects in recent months realestate.com.au had 4,082 visitors to their portal complete a survey.
And encouragingly for those of you thinking of selling, half of buyers say prices are going up, 39% think they’re just stable and only 12% say they’re moving downwards. The same survey one year earlier had only 18% believing prices were rising. That’s a big turnaround.
When asked why prices might be rising 54% said there wasn’t enough for sale. The improving economy (40%) and the return of property investors to the market (35%) were also chosen as reasons for current price growth.
You can read too much into these surveys. But with such a big survey sample it should be fairly representative of buyers’ views.
Tags: Brisbane home prices, Brisbane housing supply, home buyers Brisbane, selling a house Brisbane, selling an apartment Brisbane, www.realestate.com.au
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 23 January 2010
As competition weakened amongst home loan lenders during 2009 there was a common and frustrating side effect: Buyers started asking for 21 day finance clauses on their contracts.
This wasn’t something buyers dreamt up, but rather a regular directive issued by the banks in what we can only guess was an attempt to ease their paperwork pressures. And it’s still happening now.
Buyers and their banks need to consider the ‘cost’ of expanding the normal finance timelines of 7 or 14 days. A seller has to effectively withdraw their property from the market while they wait to see if you’ll get your money. They might have started a new marketing campaign, ads booked, money spent. When sales were slow sellers might have agreed to it but now they’re likely to need a premium price to justify the delay.
Yes the agents can take back-up contracts (that take effect only if the first contract fails) but will that second buyer also be happy to join the game of ‘wait and see’ and miss other homes?
We hear Australian car buyers can now access pre-approved personal finance online. “Synergy” uses sophisticated identity checking, credit assessment and dynamic verification. It means they can get conditional pre-approval 24/7 in one internet session.
Three weeks for a home loan approval? Buyers should be asking for better service from their banks.
Tags: back-up contracts, Brisbane home loans, finance clause, home buyers Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, trends in Brisbane property | No Comments »
Posted by admin on 21 August 2009
Are first home buyers still buying? It’s the most common question people are asking us at the moment.
In May it seemed like they”d run out of steam and we might have seen the last rush. The maroon line on the graph below shows the total grants to Queenslanders each month and you’ll see that June kicked back up again. Maybe with more job confidence, buyers lined up for their $14,000 from the government in bigger numbers than ever. The First Home Owners Grant has cost taxpayers $13billion since the October introduction of the boost.
With reasonably tough bank criteria and some conservative valuations going on, we’re surprised the run has continued as long as it has. The grant has pulled forward an enormous amount of first home demand. The graph does show the lines flattening, Queensland more so than other states, and the upcoming release of July stats will give us an update on their appetite.
Our view from the market is that sales volumes are steady as investors are taking up the slack, with first home buyers slowly easing in number.
Tags: first home buyers, First Home Owners Boost, home buyers Brisbane
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, property taxes and rates etc | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 7 August 2009
Does this question sound familiar? Somehow everyone learns to ask this of the agent when they see a home they have an interest in buying. It’s great for us because it’s a sign they may be ready to talk turkey. For our seller clients it can be a tough question though – how long is too long?
Buyers all want something fresh, a home new to the market, inspecting and securing before everyone else, capturing that prized sparkling gem that hasn’t yet been handled, tossed around and rejected by the masses.
And with a “safety in numbers” or herd approach, home buyers get nervous if it’s been for sale for some time. More than a few weeks on the market and it can lose its ’sheen’. Doubts creep in, small negatives about the property start to take on new life, the green laminate in the kitchen suddenly seems even uglier!
Suddenly a premium price is not so easy to achieve.
With email alerts and easy web access most buyers know how long a home has been for sale and, unfortunately for sellers, even if the price has been reduced the market may still turn its nose up. Once it’s considered stale buyers ask themselves what’s wrong with the home, why no-one else has wanted it. And if they do inspect their offers may start lower.
The early few weeks of the sale campaign are critical. Buyers do often ‘lie in wait’, screening their alerts for fresh offerings. It makes sense that the best offers are often achieved early.
The challenge is setting your price where its capitalises on any pent up demand, drawing the absolute most the market will pay, but getting a result before that probing time question becomes uncomfortable to answer.
Some properties can take longer so don’t panic. But do have a plan. Consider taking it off the market for a time, ask your agent to reload it onto the web, consider an auction campaign, ensure it has fresh headlines and there’s a change to hero images regularly. Advertise to attract a new pool of enquiry. And do have an agent whose advice you trust. There’s a lot of money at stake.
a common enquiry chart
Tags: buyer enquiry, buying signals, home buyers Brisbane, premium property prices, pricing strategy, promotion
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, real estate marketing | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 7 July 2009
We shouldn’t be surprised, given Google are turning out to be the most innovative company to grace the planet this millenium. They’ve now launched their new Google real estate mapping portal for Australia. And it’s guaranteed to draw home hunters in their gigabytes – buyers and tenants included.
Watch out, realestate.com.au and domain.com.au. The big boys are here.
Google Maps is something we’re all getting used to seeing and using and they now display homes for sale and for rent. Choose an area, choose a property type, choose a budget – like you’re used to doing on the other portals. But then the fun starts. Drag the map around or zoom in and out andthe results automatically update.
So for example I’m moving to Brisbane, want to stay as close to the CBD as possible, and I want to know where I can buy a 3 bed house for under $700,000. I start in the city with that criteria and zoom out until I find a little red flag that tells me I’ve got a hit.
The results simply update as I move my map and this fully dynamic results list does exactly what home hunters want it to do – cuts out the rubbish that they don’t want. And agents who leave addresses out of their ads to encourage buyers to call (annoying the #%^$#@ out of most people!) won’t have their ad displayed.
Ironically realestate.com.au has a map tab that few people know exists and they even run a full beta website, property.com.au, with a very similar mapping option to Google’s. Maybe they’ve just never given it the attention it needed?
The property portal game is a fickle one and big players have come unstuck before. But with simple linking through to Street View, mapping of neighbouring businesses and amenities, and the raw muscle of Google behind it, we’d expect to see this new site quickly become a favourite way for Australian buyers and tenants to search real estate.
Tags: Brisbane real estate agents, domain.com.au, Google, Google Maps, home buyers Brisbane, real estate mapping, real estate portals, Street View, tenants Brisbane, www.realestate.com.au
Posted in Brisbane's rental market, Brisbane's sales market, real estate marketing, trends in Brisbane property | 2 Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 3 July 2009
Freely available sales information is a double-edged sword for sellers today. It makes it easier to do the homework in setting a listing price, but your buyers are also well informed, and if that price is too high they will simply choose the next result on their search list. The web really is transforming the way buyers research and choose their property. And Australia’s dominant real estate portal has now released a tool that makes every home buyer an expert in their chosen neighbourhood.
Realestate.com.au has always had a click through to old web ads showing properties marked as sold. But agents being agents, very few of these listings showed accurate sales data. Hoping to generate phone enquiry, dimwit agents would put massive ranges on their sales record – “$500,000-600,000″ or similar.
REA’s alliance with RP Data will now give buyers exactly what they want.
RP Data collate titles office records and the links at the bottom of every property ad will now show fully accurate sales prices and dates. Where possible it will include a link to the old web ad as well. This list of the 6 most recent sales in the suburb will match the search – apartments or houses. It’s a simple tool and while it’s not a complete match of data to the chosen home it does brings enormous power to a buyer’s negotiating position.
Very few homes are identical so a good agent, presenting your property with well-targeted promotion, can still achieve a price that exceeds recent sales. History is history and buyers know that markets can move.
But agents that rely on their ‘insider knowledge’ to bluff a buyer will find the going even tougher. More than ever the marketing of property needs to be about finding points of difference, key features that benefit that particular buyer, and establishing value in their minds.
This is no longer a game to be played by amateurs.
Tags: Brisbane real estate agents, Brisbane sales data, home buyers Brisbane, real estate portals, RP Data, sales information Brisbane, titles office Queensland, www.realestate.com.au
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, real estate marketing | No Comments »
Posted by Rob Honeycombe on 7 April 2009
Will property developers take a risk?
Marketing is all about perceptions and Hyundai USA have a remarkable new offer for car buyers. Buy one of their cars then if you lose your job you can return it for a refund. And Hyundai will make your car payments for you for 3 months, saying “It’s easier to find a job when you have a car”!
Are they nuts?! A recent Colmar Brunton survey of Australians found that while unemployment here might tip 7% almost half of us feel less secure in our jobs. Hyundai USA know that while lots of people worry, only a few jobs will be lost. They’re taking some risk but how many cars will they sell if they sit on their hands? Big risk in that.
So where’s the real estate connection? That same Australian survey showed 52% of us believe now is a good time to buy a property. But they’re not buying. Real economic problems are effecting home buyers, but how much more damage is being done by perceived problems?
There’s a lot of buyers looking and waiting in Brisbane right now. Rents have risen, costs of ownership are low and buyers have plenty of choice. You can sense that the most common conversation of 2010 might well be, “I wish I’d bought in 2009!” But fear of the unknown is stopping many.
When might one of our nation’s big builders or developers take Hyundai’s lead?
Tags: Colmar Brunton, home buyers Brisbane, unemployment rate Australia
Posted in Brisbane's sales market, real estate marketing | No Comments »
Latest info from the RP Data Rismark Home Value report shows Brisbane’s house prices have been the worst performing of any capital city over the past year, with our median down 6.8% in the year to the end of March.
