What The Agents Are Saying
Around the traps talking with real estate agents who are at the forefront of selling property the feedback is that the market is definitely slowing down. This can be seen by the decrease in numbers at open houses, where some of the figures have shown towards the end of 2017 early 2018 agents were having between 20 to 50 groups through the property, then come auction time having 5 or more interested parties registering to bid on the day and having a successful outcome. To present day maybe 10 to 20 groups through and come auction day 2 to 3 registered, with the end result being no bids or the price does not meet the vendor’s expectations. These figures are not correct for all suburbs in Sydney as some areas are still achieving some good results; this is a generalised scenario for most suburbs. What this means is that auctions in previous years we have seen the auction results achieving figures in the 80% plus, with now the latest results have been just hitting above 50%. This picture does not mean auctions are not the way to sell, in fact auctions are probably still the best way to have a sale in a shorter period of time and as the results show, you have a 50% plus chance of getting the property sold on the day! The big question is, are you prepared to meet the market? Selling and buying in the same market is the best position to be in, the better position is knowing to sell when the prices were higher when competition amongst buyers was strong, then coming back into the market when prices start to fall, unfortunately that scenario you may need a crystal ball.
Yes, the Sydney real estate market is showing that housing prices are starting to cool off and on the decrease, as seen in most of Australia’s capital cities for the exception of Hobart and certain other regions in Tasmania. Home prices started to flatten around March 2018 and have been on a cautious down turn since. In Sydney the cycle of events is the higher end of the property market values start weakening and under performing, as we said earlier, especially in the auction results, while the lower end of the market slows and weakens accordingly, the lower end market still remains in a much better position, due to the affordability.
If we want to start talking a bit more technical and throw some percentages in, the percentage falls in the Sydney market with the slowdown in houses is 3.5% to 7%, and particularly those in the upper end of the market at 6.5% to 10% during 2018.
