Money Talk with Troy March 2024

Hello readers, as I write this article, we are well into the first quarter of 2024 and the year has started quite unlike any others for some time. Typically, the Christmas season see a stop to new business for brokers around the beginning of December. This is because the banks, settlement agents, valuers, everyone go on holidays in mid- December, and no one moves over Christmas. This sees January roll around to find us staring at our bank balances with nausea and anxiety, not much to do and long days to fill. Things pick up around Australia Day and by early February the wheels are rolling again. Not this year. Not at all.

The inquiry rate drops approaching Christmas, however net migration is significant. No figures yet for January & February, however other indicators show explosive growth in net migration. The highest in the country, by a large margin.

We were taking serious deals (December is usually the time when you get crazy clients wanting a Christmas Miracle) right into the end of December. And by the 5^th of January there was more to come. The lenders have been caught off guard as well and service times for new applications have blown out to weeks.

The juggernaut/ avalanche/ Tsunami / game of musical chairs for grown-ups whatever you want to call it has only intensified since with no reason to see it slow any time soon.

How is this possible? You exclaim through tears of frustration and despair. There aren’t any houses for sale!!! How can this be!!! You can’t be serious??

Before you fly off into a John McEnroe style rage and fling your racquet at me, allow me to explain.

The one constant in life is change and it’s coming whether you like it or not. The old way of finding a property on Real estate.com and putting in an offer is gone. Defunct. Obsolete. Kaput.  And it will be for the foreseeable future.

The shortage of available homes and the rise of buyer’s agents has made the market change, some say irrevocably.

Sellers are not interested in home opens, marketing campaigns and expensive photography. With a surplus of buyers, you wouldn’t go to the expense and hassle unless you had something above most people’s means (and even then, it’s limited).