Happy New Year
Well, the new year is here, in terms of the calendar, not necessarily ‘the market’ however, I have been receiving strong enquiry from interested buyers and sellers already.
While we all wait in anticipation of what the year may hold in terms of market conditions and house prices in 2016, media outlets of all kinds have been releasing a lot of mixed and varying information, data and speculation. One article I read yesterday was regarding the ‘median sale price’ of homes in each state in Australia and dictating the average ‘household income’ required for people to service a mortgage at the median price.
What I found very interesting was for people servicing a mortgage at the ‘median’ in Sydney which was reported at around $800,000 in this case, the average household income was reportedly $105,000. Obviously this wasn’t taken well over social media, which is where I too found this article circulating.
I researched the ‘average salary’ in Australia which turned out to be almost $80,000 p/year, so if you and your partner were tracking at say 80% of the average annual salary it would be very accessible, with change, to buy a property in NSW.
*nb I was referencing these figures from memory
Of course, this may not track well for singles who may need to work a little harder to achieve such a goal – either that, or find a flatmate to help service the mortgage.
This will be one issue we face coming into the new year, the other one is ‘UNDERQUOTING’ a method where agents under quote the expected sale price for a property to drum up business in order to enhance competition on a property – the goal; a higher price.
This has reportedly left a lot of buyers high and dry throughout the busy market of the past 18 months.
While most agents are genuinely unaware of a properties eventual selling price, sometimes the deception is obvious – if it seems too good to be true, well, it probably is.
The legislation change will be good for agents this year, as well as buyers and vendors; what it will do is return a level of trust to the market.
I find it obvious to provide comparable sales for vendors when pricing and buyers when purchasing as a way of proving value and competition – this will now become law when pricing property, be sure to request it when selling or buying.
The other utilitarian function of this law will be to eradicate weaker agents who rely on deception to sell property – thank goodness.
Let’s see what the year delivers, I will be back with more once the new property hits the market and Auctions begin for the new year.
Aside from that, any commentary on the future of the property markets conditions would be pure speculation and almost impossible to predict.
Happy 2016.
Thomas Merriman.
Thomas Merriman 