Weekly Market Update April 2nd, 2019
By | 1st Apr 19

Your weekly insight for everything property related

Melbourne’s auction clearance rates have found a steady level with another 53% consistent rate on the weekend from 682 auctions. The First Home Buyer end of the market continues to be the strongest as we saw with 5 bidders pushing a one bedroom apartment in Caroline Street, South Yarra to $393,000 with an investor winning the keys from four First Home Buyers. The strongest result we saw was an art deco apartment in Hawsleigh Avenue, St Kilda East which sold for $652,000, $92,000 over reserve. A young first home buyer beat another 2 First Home Buyers to the keys.

 

Buyers need to stick to their budgets and not get carried away at auctions. We missed out for an investor at The Block auctions late last year as we stuck to our budgets and didn’t over pay. We were delighted for our investor client as he just bought The Block challenge apartment for under $2.5 million which is well below what all the other Block properties sold for.

 

There continues to be much talk about negative gearing and Labour’s plan to abolish it. It seems now that if Labour is elected, negative gearing will not be abolished immediately but in the early 2020, around six months after the elections. This might cause a rush for investors to buy in a years’ time.  The days on market in Melbourne is increasing and now it’s gone up from 34 days to an average of 43 days. Vendors now need to be a lot more patient and wait for the right buyers to come along.