Weekly Market Update - March 4, 2019
By | 4th Mar 19

The hidden costs when purchasing property.

Melbourne’s clearance rate improved this weekend with a 56% clearance rate from 725 properties.  There looks to have been a pickup in the market place as we saw that with an auction in Mawby Street, Bentleigh East which had massive interest and sold $235,000 above reserve.  There were six bidders and a crowd of over one hundred people.  Thought it is a tale of two markets as the housing sector had so much growth over the last five years, though apartments didn’t do so well.  We saw this with a one bedroom apartment in Palmer Street, Richmond which was passed in and sold afterwards for $452,000 and the apartment was purchased for $448,000 back in 2013.

Although the market is patchy and Melbourne’s property is going through a price correction period, there are still some record results. A big mega mansion was sold by our client Mark Spinosa in Balwyn North which beat the previous suburb record result and sold in vicinity of $7 million dollars. These continued record results show that buyers will still pay top dollar for quality real estate and it easily beat the previous suburb record result of $6.18 million in Tormey Street. 

There has been a big improvement in the quoting of price ranges for properties in Melbourne. Properties are now selling within 2.3% of their listed price compared to 16% in February 2016. Much of this has to do with the new quoting laws and statement of information which are assisting buyers with their purchase decisions.  Victoria has recorded its lowest unemployment rate ever at 4.15% with employment strong and our migration and population growth continues to be strong. Our property market should bounce back in the near future.