With Winter now coming to a close, I am happy to report that the past few months have proven to be a more positive period for the Victorian property market than many people might have expected.
As I have mentioned in some of our previous Updates, the ongoing shortage of new property listings becoming available for sale has driven buyer competition. As a result, our team of Vendor Advocates has been able to assist our clients to achieve some decidedly bullish results. As you may have read, this situation has also been pushing median property prices slightly higher, with Corelogic’s Home Value Index recording its fifth consecutive monthly rise in July.
There is no doubt that the market has begun to feel more consistent recently, with less fear and more certainty being evident among buyers. The news earlier this week that the Reserve Bank was leaving official interest rates on hold for the second month in a row has added to hopes among many home buyers that we may have seen the peak in mortgage rates.
Add these two factors together and there is every reason to believe that those people who have been sitting on their hands waiting for “the tide to turn” really need to start getting active.
As we so often advise our clients, Spring is a season that can provide huge opportunities for home sellers, but only if you time your run correctly. Early Spring is the time when buyer activity steps up each year but is often met with a shortage of supply until the pendulum starts to swing in October. Once that happens, we normally expect to see a large increase in the number of new listings hitting the market, meaning that competition will start to have more relevance to sellers rather than buyers.
Another key consideration when approaching a Spring sale is that this is a season that has a higher quota of potential distractions to your marketing campaign. Not only do we have school holidays to consider, but we also have long weekends in September and November linked to the AFL Grand Final weekend and the Spring Racing Carnival.
History shows that the most effective way to avoid getting caught up in this rush of new listings is to get your own property campaign under way BEFORE the Grand Final weekend, but this strategy does require some careful planning. So, feel free to give one of our team a call this week if you’d like to discuss your options.
Of course, if you plan to purchase your next property in the coming weeks, whether that involves selling or not, then our Buyer Advocates are well placed to assist you in that process, particularly if you are keen to take advantage of some of the ‘off-market’ opportunities that our team is so good at sourcing.
The key to avoiding being one of the many Victorians who will be saying “if only” later this year is early planning and preparation. So, don’t hesitate to get in touch with the team at Ian Reid Buyer and Vendor Advocates soon by giving us a call on 9430 0000.
11/28/2023 
