Weekly Property Update - July 31st 2017
By | 31st Jul 17

WATCH: Frank Valentic's insights with his first August update.

Melbourne continues its solid performance with a 76% clearance rate from 676 auctions and some record results showed that Melbourne’s market still hasn’t peaked. A house in Princess Street, Port Melbourne sold for nearly $1,000,000 over reserve, selling for $2,730,000. I was interviewed by Channel 10 News about Melbourne’s capital growth which is now surpassing Sydney at around about 16% on average compared to Sydney’s 12%. We are now growing 25% faster and the biggest factor is our population growth, increasing by 146,000 this year which is 50% higher than our 100,000 average per annum.

Demand continues to grow in many of Melbourne’s middle suburbs as these suburbs tend to lag behind in growth compared to the inner suburbs. We saw this in Clayton where we were buying for clients five years ago with a median house price of $640,000 and it was a “Hot Spot” area for us and now the median house price has jumped to $1,415,000 in the last five years, going up at 24% a year and it has more than doubled in the past five years.

We had a great result for a two bedroom apartment in Ida Street, North Fitzroy, but it had a “wow factor” with an entertainers courtyard, click here to view more. It was well received by First Home Buyers that came out in force and we had nine interested First Home Buyers and four of them bid to aid a great result of $605,500. We bought this apartment for an investor client only late last year for $432,000 and it just shows that apartments with a point of difference definitely have an opportunity to achieve great prices. Another apartment in Westbury Street, St Kilda East, which was a standard one bedroom without the courtyard, saw the auction cancelled on Saturday.

Our rising dollar is creating some headlines and it is now over 80 cents and it is now pointing to the fact that the RBA won’t be increasing interest rates in the near future if the dollar keeps going up. Most experts predict that the RBA won’t increase rates and now it just depends on whether banks keep increasing the rates independently. That’s some good news for investors as we probably won’t see a rate rise from the RBA in the next one to two years.

Please don’t hesitate to visit our website www.advantageproperty.com.au or contact us regarding our popular Buyer’s Advocate, Vendor Advocacy, Property Management, Owner’s Corporation services and Group Block Purchases, including our future villa unit opportunity at 159 O'Shanassy Street, Sunbury (from $238,000 each, with rental return of approximately $225-$235 per week or 5%).