Thomas Merriman

September was a big month in Sydney for property sales with the continuation of the high market, prices have remained high and stock has continued to turn over at a solid rate.
Auction clearance results peaked for the year at close to 90% depending on which publication one trusts, be it RPData or APM etc.
The most part of the month saw the Clearance rates closer to the low to mid 80% range.

There was a slightly lower level of stock hitting the market, consistent with reports from media outlets about the property market. This may have spurred on the Clearance rate, but only slightly as we still saw a 77% clearance rate on Saturday October 1^st (which wrapped up campaigns for September) with under 200 properties going under the hammer.

Across the Upper North Shore we saw the Normanhurst market continue to gain momentum, St Ives started to pick up again and Turramurra had a very large number of property selling throughout September.
Land values have continued the strong momentum with 115 Merrivale Lane, Pymble selling for $2,350,000 under the hammer and 40 Billyard Ave, Wahroonga selling for $2,600,000 off-market, both properties set to be knocked down and rebuilt.

New home builds are at an all-time high only to be rivaled by the Olympic boom around 2000/2001 with expectations that new infrastructure across Sydney will only help boost these numbers.
However, off-the-plan apartments are set to pull back slightly with a bit of a flood to the market.

There is a rate announcement scheduled for today (Tuesday October 4th) with a 2% speculation of a rate cut according to the ASX interbank cash rate futures, which have been under scrutiny lately due to potential rate fixing in the big banks.

Banks are starting to wobble, let’s hope the ‘bricks and mortar’ market stays strong for those of us trading property.

Thomas Merriman.