The heat is certainly still in the market.
The conversations that I have been having with agents on Sydney’s Upper North Shore so far this year have been positive with good buyer interest. Group numbers through open homes have been strong and the ‘tyre kickers’ or ‘speculative buyers’ are certainly out in force as well.
There will be no immediate conclusion, in the short term, as to where prices will be, however.
With a possible disparity between vendor expectations and buyer budgets the new year could go either way at this stage.
Auctions were up and running last weekend, although a few may have gone on around certain markets in the country, the Sydney Real Estate market released figures from last weekend as our first recorded for the year.
With 97 Auctions listed for the weekend, 85 were recorded and 67 were sold.
These small numbers are not unusual considering the small amount of lead time after the Christmas/New Year break and considering most agents don’t return to work until the second – and sometimes – third week in January.
With this being said the clearance rate is a positive 71%, remembering of course that the clearance rate, even in the midst of the hype last year dipped quite dramatically to the 60% range.
I’ll keep you posted.
Thomas Merriman.
Thomas Merriman 