The Happy Couple.
There is so much confusion about what’s actually happening in the current market. When I read commentary it reminds me of the duality of the political environment, it’s either one extreme or the other.
On one hand you have the spruikers comprised of giddy real estate agents and property journalists. According to this side of the dance floor the market is red hot, stock is low and we should all buckle up and get ready for more price rises.
On the other hand we have the alarmists heralding that the end is nigh. This side of the floor is made up of real estate agents (I’ll explain), economists and scarred people who got cleaned up in the interest rate wipe out that occurred in the late 1980’s.
So which one is it? Boom or bust? I'd say it's a bit of both.
Many years ago I was advised by a smart property investor that if I wanted to predict what the market would likely do then all I had to do is research the demographics. The talk of the town last week was the lightning sell out of Helms ‘Reverie’ development for astonishing prices. Local agents were quick to jump on this and exclaim this was proof the market was firing, those claims are far too simplistic.
The main reason that development sold the way it did is that Mosman has a very well heeled aging population and there is a severe under supply of downsizer appropriate inventory. This 'housing crisis' (if you can call it that) is set to get worse.
We are now in a market where large apartments with level access are often selling for more than substantial family homes in the same suburb. The old quarter acre block Australian dream may be turning on its head.
When reading anything (including this) you need to ask yourself where the author is coming from and what motives they may have.
It’s becoming apparent that the least credible source for market information is from real estate agents. Why? Agents need listings and at the moment they are few and far between (in contrast there is a severe oversupply of agents). According to the website RateMyAgent there are 150 active agents in Mosman alone….150!
Another example of such reporting this week is a local agent was lauding the success of a home sale at $8M, a great result according to him of course. What wasn’t mentioned was the original list price at $14M. It kind of reminds me of those happy couple pics you see posted on socials when you know that behind the scenes the lawyers are at the ready.
Ok so let’s address the elephant in the room…where am I coming from?
I want listings that’s for sure, they are the life blood of our business but I would also love to be part of an industry that didn’t continuously feed the general public BS. Right now the market is performing in vastly different ways depending on the property type.
Great work by our team this week securing 5 sales and for getting up in the dark to train for the biggest day on the Australian calendar….the Mini Mos Marathon...June 18 is almost here.
Until next week,
David Murphy