Market Update 21st April 2020
By | 21st Apr 20

The Melbourne property market has adapted to online auctions fairly quickly as there was some solid results from the online auctions over the weekend. It was the entry level of the market which is serving a more tech savvy generation and more accustomed to online systems and social media that has seen a lot of activity. There were 4 or 5 bidders at many of these online auctions. There continues to be some solid demand for entry level property.

In interesting news, the Victorian government finally came forward and  provided some clarity around the rental changes that it was talking about although again it looks like landlords/investors are the hardest hit. In the package which was announced the $500million, $420million was allocated to land tax relief although many landlords would have low land tax bills if they own apartments or units in their portfolio.

This again means that the relief that the government is providing will not offset the discounts in rent that the tenants are going to be requesting. This again shows that this is very much skewed towards tenants even though landlords and tenants face the same job challenges. Landlords have extra costs including council rates, water rates, Owners Corporation fees, land tax bills and also potentially facing losing their jobs or facing a large reduction in hours as well. I would be interested to know your thoughts on if this is equitable or an unfair bias towards tenants.