Weekly Market Update: 19th November 2018
By | 18th Nov 18

Your weekly Property update by award winning Buyer’s Agent Frank Valentic

The Melbourne market continues to be a buyer’s dream at the moment with less competition at auctions.  Most of the auctions this weekend saw one bidder and there were quite a few pass in and negotiate afterwards deals.  The clearance rate was a low 47% from 963 auctions. Though properties with a “WOW” factor are still performing better than the market’s averages.  We missed out on a block of villa units in the residential growth zone in Millward Street, Brunswick. We were one of the under bidders and it sold for $2,036,000, which was $86,000 above reserve and was a strong result in the current market conditions. 

We also saw another solid auction of a period home in Blessington Street, St Kilda on a good size block of land of 426sqm.  It attracted a big crowd and it ended up passing in with two bidders bidding up to $2,560,000. It sold for a very solid $90,000 increase after past auction negotiations, selling for $2,650,000.

Many people are talking about the Melbourne property market and talking about doom and gloom but the facts are that property is about a long-term game plan and its not about short-term speculating and so it doesn’t matter if market comes back a little bit which it has done this year.  Overall property has experienced some phenomenal capital growth in Melbourne for the last 20 or so years.  Back in 1996 the median house price was $129,000 and now it’s around $820,000 so doubled six times in the past 22 years. 

Many suburbs have transformed and gentrified over that time of period.  We have seen Ashburton’s median price of $157,000 in 1996 increasing now to $1,650,000 and Box Hill also had some phenomenal growth, increasing its median house price of $160,000 to $1,840,000 now.  The Western suburbs have become more popular as well as young families and young professionals are seeing value in areas such as West Footscray, where the median house price was $92,000 in 1996 and is now $897,000, with many houses now achieving over $1million in the area.