It’s almost becoming death by repetition with another 72% clearance rate achieved on the weekend.

I did note a few surprising pass ins but after speaking with the agents they were confident they would get a result in the coming weeks.

The usual reason given for a pass in other than the standard “the vendor wants to much” was that people are cautious as they don’t know what else may become available in the market this year.

So as the year where’s on we should see the market continue to perform consistently if we keep a good supply of stock available.

If you are looking to buy or sell a property please feel free to get in touch.

With a clearance rate of 74% achieved from 457 auctions conducted we can safely say the market has picked up from where last year left off.

I still feel we are hearing to much doom and gloom about the positives and not enough focus on the pockets and areas that may or will struggle over the coming time.

I think a lot of people in the media like to cherry pick what they report on depending which axe they have to grind.

One thing we never here mentioned is the performance of new housing estates where so many first homebuyers are encouraged to purchase and how many people actually have negative equity.

Keep an eye out for my video on this during the week.

Obviously being one of the first weekends of auctions we won’t learn to much from the clearance rate of 76%.

This is because we only saw less than 500 auctions being conducted.

I feel as we head into 2018 as I have mentioned previously we will continue to see the doom and gloom predictions from the usual sources.

I have termed 2018 the year of the whinge purely because I think some people feel that that is how they will either get the propriety they want or that if they whinge enough the market will collapse, this is not how I advise my clients to achieve their goals in property.

As we see the year continue on we will see auction levels increase and hopefully the continuation of a good consistent clearance rate.

With another weekend recording 68% we are clearly seeing holidays come early to the property market.

With only one weekend of auctions left it is very clear most people have switched off and gone on holidays.

I noted very low numbers at inspections and at auctions over the weekend.

Yet cafes, bars and restaurants were all packed.

This shows that people have decided enough is enough and the year is over.

Speaking to many agents they are all saying the same thing and that it’s been a long couple of years and that the market is tired and ready for a holiday.

As we wind down this isn’t the end of opportunities to buy and sell.

We now see a lot more deals being done quietly and off market.

If you have missed buying a property this year don’t worry as a lot of the agents will work through the break.

A clearance rate of 68% was recorded on the weekend.

What does this mean for the market and future auctions?

Well people are distracted from the property market a little at this time of year. We also had a weather event that wasn’t so bad but would have made people second guess attending an auction.

As we head into the last couple of weeks we will see this slight reduction in clearance rates continue although it’s not as if we have seen a drop in prices and in fact there were some big results over the weekend.

If we were really seeing a cooling in the market we would see prices drop off. Since we aren’t seeing that occurring maybe it’s just the end of the property year and we will start to move into more private sales now.

Every year everyone seems to forget that we have this celebration called Christmas and the great distraction of school holidays, with soime parents even planning to go away I am sure that would seem more important to some than looking for a home or an investment property.

A clearance rate of 69% was achieved in the weekend and what this means is that there is still competition out their for good properties but we are starting to see the numbers drop off as we head into the Christmas period.

This means we will see less people out and about as the year winds up and this is normal as some people prefer to do the family duties than look at and buy houses.

So whilst a drop off is never good its not the end of the world just yet.

Let me put this into context, previous weeks we have had less auctions and hit a very similar rate to this. So applying logic to this would mean we still have a large number of buyers in the market that haven’t found a property that is right or that is within their budget or both.

Whilst I am on about consistency I was shocked (not really) to already see articles out last night predicting the market is now ready to collapse. I have a distinct feeling either I am looking at the wrong results or the media and so called experts have no idea.

I mentioned last week some agents are having a lot of trouble getting their quote ranges right to entice buyers to look and bit on a property whilst also following the letter of the law. We are seeing more properties pass in but then be snapped up quickly after auction.

As we head into the final weeks of the auction year I feel every article will be doom and gloom around the property market proving just how out of touch the media really are with the reality of the property market.

A clearance rate of 81 per cent was recorded this week compared to 80 per cent last week and 73 per cent this week last year. There were 1099 auctions reported to the REIV, with 894 selling and 205 being passed in, 89 of those on a vendor bid. More than 8,500 homes have gone to auction this year with 80 per cent selling under the hammer. The city’s outer suburbs now account for 25 per cent of all metropolitan auctions.

One thing I did note over the weekend and talking to some agents is the caginess around pricing.

With the new changes around how agents quote I found a few agents absolutely unwilling to give any feedback on price to potential purchasers on the basis of they don’t want to be held accountable for giving the wrong information so it is better to say nothing.

This is part of the law of unintended consequences that Governments never seem to understand when fiddling with free markets like the property market to pander to the lowest common denominator.

When you make changes to the law to make agents more and more liable instead of realising that it is the agents job to maximise the sale price as they are paid by the vendor so their ultimate responsibility is to the vendor they will find a new way to operate which might be even less favorable than before.

Obviously I am not advocating a free for all and there does need to be legislation in place to regulate the industry but I do not understand the obsession with placing more restrictions on the agents when they can’t control the level to which purchasers are willing to bid.

The quote range was never meant to be where the agent foresees the property selling but was designed as an indicator for the current value of the property. I often joke in some circumstances is the agent meant to stop the bidding at an auction at a certain level so people don’t get annoyed that the sale price has blown out.

It must always be remembered that at the end of the day property is an investment and thus the market should be treated with the same respect that we treat the share market. Making haphazard changes does not help anyone especially when they have the potential to make the market more closed off than before.

In essence I foresee some of these changes will actually push people towards businesses like mine when they want to buy a property in the established housing market but don’t want to deal with estate agents.

A clearance rate of 81 per cent was recorded this week compared to 80 per cent last week and 70 per cent this week last year. There were 884 auctions reported to the REIV, with 719 selling and 165 being passed in, 62 of those on a vendor bid. Melbourne’s outer west suburbs have experienced significant increases in auction activity, with Hoppers Crossing and Werribee doubling their sales figures when compared to the same period last year.

As we head into the mini break we will see a drop off in the available new stock coming onto the market until after the break. This will continue to keep pressure on the market as when we go through periods of reduced stock we don’t see a similar reduction in demand from buyers.

We do have some sectors of the market that aren’t performing, we are seeing a huge over supply of stock at in the new or off the plan market which should be a concern for all purchasers looking at these types of property’s. When we see these types of property’s coming up for resale after they have been built we rarely see prices hold their value due to the oversupply in these markets.

We still see a lot of talk around the lowering of stamp duty and how this is the great hope of home buyers.

This will only add to push price’s further out of reach of some as it wont ease the demand pressure.

If you have any questions about The State of the Market please feel free to give me a call.

A clearance rate of 82 per cent was recorded this weekend compared to 79 per cent last weekend. There were 1192 auctions reported to the REIV, with 974 selling and 218 being passed in, 88 of those on a vendor bid. Prahran was the city’s top performer last week with 18 homes sold at auction while both Bundoora and Torquay recorded 100 per cent clearance rates from 13 auctions in each.

With how the market is performing consistently we must ask is there a chance it could all cone tumbling down. The answer is yes of course and we are already seeing certain sectors of the market perform badly, in particular the on sales of off the plan developments once completed. The reason behind this is the same reason we are seeing other sectors of the market perform. Where we have an under supply of property’s in some areas we have an over supply of modern off the plan property on the market thus limiting growth.

So when I am asked the question of when is the market going to crash I always ask back which property market are you referring to as nothing is black and white.

If you have any questions about The State of the Market or about how we can help you buy or sell your property please feel free to get in touch.