Weekly Market Update - 13th December, 2017
By | 13th Dec 17

Your weekly Melbourne property update by Frank Valentic

Melbourne’s apartment sector has definitely seen a recovery as there has been a marked improvement in this market and there has been much more demand. This has improved from the 1st of July when the First Home Buyers stamp duty concessions were increased and pushing this market up considerably. We saw this at a number of unit auctions on the weekend including our Vendor Advocacy auction in Lisson Grove, Hawthorn and other auctions in Tintern Avenue, Toorak and in Barton Street, Reservoir which also sold well.

The Melbourne clearance rate was a consistent 68% from 1320 auctions. There has been so much more on offer with far more choice for buyers from the higher auction volumes. There will be more opportunities coming up on this last weekend of auctions with some potentially great deals as many vendors will want to be sold prior to Christmas before the market shuts down for a few months. Usually we see the market start with a bang mid February when auctions resume as many buyers are relocating from interstate or overseas and many may need to settle before starting in new schools.

It sounds like most of the economists agree that interest rates will not be moving upwards in the near future. There were predictions previously that interest rates would go up in 2018 but now many of the chief economists have predicted that they believe interest rates will be on hold for 2018 and may start to increase in early to mid 2019. That will be welcome news for many property buyers as they know that they can purchase property without rates going up considerably or going up at all. They haven’t increased in the last seven to eight years and it has given many buyers the confidence to purchase a property, with interest rates remaining at record lows.

Please don’t hesitate to check out our website for more information about our popular Buyer’s Advocate, Sellers Advocate, Owner’s Corporation and Property Management services and our latest newsletters as well as our future Group Block opportunities. Our newest opportunities are a block of two bedroom art deco apartments (without parking) in Duke Street, St Kilda for $510,000 each that we have negotiated after auction with a developer, block of 4 two bedroom villa units in Tullamarine (approximately $310,000 each), a block of 4 one bedroom and 2 two bedroom villa units in Ballarat, each with a car space (approximately $150,000 each for the one bedroom units and approximately $200,000 each for the two bedroom units) as well as our two bedroom villa units in St Albans (approximately $290,000-$300,000 each).  Please register your interest by contacting mfairbank@advantageproperty.com.au