Baby Please Don’t Go
Gina Kantzas, Maddie James, Mal James, Phoebe James, Simone Clarke and Kathy Russell
Updated: Saturday 9th of October 2021 @ 6.00pm
James INSIGHTS
Intensity is dropping marginally. Bidderman has eased from 4 immediately after inspections restarted to 3 – but 3 bidders per auction is still an equal all-time high.
The pent-up lockdown bubble has had some air let out over the last fortnight, but it is still well and truly super pressurised.
Higher priced stock coming onto the market – with a few mixed results, but overall, still exceptionally strong. Stellar results at Portsea, Malvern East and 2 stratospherically huge in Toorak.
So, before you read too much into the tea leaves – a clearance rate over 90% on a larger sample size of 50 – that is ballistic, not levelling off.
What would be the signs if the market was easing?
A fracturing of results at
- different price points ($1m to $5m),
- different positions (fringe to blue chip) and
- different properties (A to B/C graders).
Some homes would continue to get strong competition and others not so. This would be a function of unmatched price expectations between buyer and seller on anything less than AAA properties.
This would be the first sign of change, well ahead of significant drops in clearance rates and median price stats. It’s good to know this early intel to prevent overpaying or rejecting the early best offer.
Overall, the market may be rolling off boiling to scorching and this may be due to talk of money tightening, stock market wobbles, we’ve all had enough, or it simply may be this is what happens every October (and May), the year’s biggest months for offerings.
Check in during the week as we update the Spring 100.
Take care for it’s still very fiery out there.
What is really happening?
No speculation, no tea leaf reading, no novels on fence-sitting.
Till lockdown is over, we will build this page towards 100 selected zoom auctions over $2m and we will publish every result, till we are clear on what is truly happening in our vaccinated Top End Inner Melbourne family home market.
It will be 7 days a week, it will be small on opinion and big on reality.
Right now, the market is on absolute fire – but things change quickly – more stock, talk of interest rates, talk of war and lockdowns and stock market wobbles, all change things very quickly. So, check in regularly.
Turn to the one place you get the real news on what is really going on – James Buy Sell.
James Buy Sell in conjunction with Kay and Burton
September 28
11 Ludstone Street Hampton
SOI: $3,100,000 – $3,300,000
Agent: Peter Hickey
Bought before auction: in excess of $3.3m
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
September 30
8 McLauchlin Avenue Sandringham
SOI: $3,400,000 – $3,600,000
Agent: Romana Altman
Bought before auction: in excess of $3.5m
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 4
157 & 157a Dendy Street Brighton East
SOI: $2,600,000 – $2,860,000
Agent: Campbell Cooney
Bought before auction: $3,035,000
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 4
21 Whyte Street Brighton
SOI: $2,200,000 – $2,400,000
Agent: Julian Augustini
Bought before auction: in excess of $2.6m
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 7
34 Imbros Street Hampton
SOI: $2,000,000 – $2,200,000
Agent: Nick Johnstone
Bought before auction: $undisc
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 8
19 Lyell Street South Melbourne
SOI: $2,100,000 – $2,300,000
Agent: David Lack
Bought before auction: $undisc
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 6
36 Drake Street Brighton
SOI: $5,400,000 – $5,850,000
Auctioneer: Gowan Stubbings
Agent: Alex Schiavo
On Zoom: 15
Opening Bid: $5,750,000 VB
OM: $6,055,000
SOLD: undisc over $6,200,000
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
James Buy Sell in conjunction with The Agency
October 5
49 Highbury Grove Prahran
SOI: $2,000,000 – $2,200,000
Agent: Darren Lewenberg
Bought before auction: $undisc
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 5
1 Bellman Lane Glen Iris
SOI: $2,000,000 – $2,200,000
Agent: Justin Krongold
Bought before auction: in excess of $2,200,000
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 7
SOI: $2,900,000 – $3,190,000
Auctioneer: John Morrisby
Agent: John Morrisby
Zoom: 38
Opening Bid: $2,800,000
On Market: $3,375,000
SOLD: $3,720,000
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 4
1 Church Street Canterbury
SOI: $2,400,000 – $2,600,000
Agent: Peter Vigano
Bought before auction: in excess of $2.7m
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 4
9a Brooke Street Hawthorn
SOI: $2,000,000 – $2,200,000
Agent: Nick Whyte
Bought before auction: $2,110,000
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 5
10 Hilltop Avenue Glen Iris
SOI: $2,300,000 – $2,500,000
Agent: Justin Krongold
Bought before auction: in excess of $2.6m
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 7
24 King Street Glen Iris
SOI: $2,000,000 – $2,200,000
Agent: Andrew Luke
Bought before auction: $2,200,000
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 1
12 Penrhyn Avenue Glen Iris
SOI: $2,200,000 – $2,420,000
Agent: Zali Reynolds
Bought before auction: $undisc
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
October 9
SOI: $3,000,000 – $3,300,000
Auctioneer: James Tostevin
Agent: Charlie Tostevin
On Zoom: 23
Opening Bid: $3,000,000 VB
OM: $3,220,000
SOLD: $3,391,000
JAMES AUCTION REPORT
Baby, please don't go
62 years ago I was born in Sydney. I stayed a week. I’m a Melburnian!!
Being on the spectrum I am hard wired positive, sometimes intimidatingly so and until recently, always looking forward to what’s next.
Right now, this is the lowest I’ve ever felt; not that the world will end soon low; just a long flat dull thud kind of low. For me joy is harder to find than it has ever been.
And I can feel many of you are the same way. Not a week goes by without an increasing number of you making some form of contact to talk about the possibility of selling up and moving on.
In many ways who can blame you – we have gone in our own minds, from the best city to damn near the worst. We are the laughingstock of Aus, despised by the Europeans and seen as laggards by the rest of the world in saving our planet. In our own minds. And all this whilst we are locked up, starved of friendships and worried about our futures. This is seemingly our lot as Melburnians.
Many think that at month’s end there will be some honeymoon champagne drinking for the more fortunate ones, but no earth-shattering, switch-flicking from all is wrong to all is right.
We have been relatively ravaged as Beirut has been, as Razzaq has been, as New York was 20 years ago. We are involved in collective trauma, the likes many of us have never experienced before. So why would you not want to leave – to run – to look for life that is greener, sunnier, more vibrant on the other side of the hill.
Please, I am not about to suggest some jingoistic C’mon Melbourne campaign, although it wouldn’t hurt. In fact, I am not going to suggest or tell anybody how to deal with anything or how you should feel. It may seem unacceptable to many but I am even starting to feel a softer spot for the protesters, the anti vaxers, as I do for the medical teams and police. Things are less black and white for me in the 2000-2019 world’s most livable city than they were even a few months ago.
I have lost clear sense of my identity, of my community’s identity, of my beloved Melbourne’s identity. I am not as clear on who a Melburnian is. I want to get that back.
Yeah, I know chin up and soldier on and I will; but right now, it just doesn’t cut the mustard the same way it once did.
PTSD has become an acronym that we not only get conceptually, but we are now getting a version of by living in Melbourne.
I am not sure if any of the above helps you or me but I think acceptance is one of those stages of loss, as is anger. I am more regularly finding I have to ask – did you really just say that Mal? Is that how you really feel? Or was that a visceral reaction to your current circumstances – away from that specific interaction that you just seemingly lost your marbles in?
I have an underlying feeling of disturbance, an increasing sense of loss, and that back of mind experience of blunt force trauma. And like you, I am some way from fully getting over things, despite my channelling otherwise. AND I have less reason logically to feel that my difficulties are comparable to yours. I am extremely lucky by any standard, extremely well off by any measurement and yet I still feel a little lost.
Despite my insecurities, I hope I have the right to say: Baby please don’t go.
I really don’t want to miss you. I want to see you and have a joke or an argument with you. And not over that bloody zoom, over a real coffee or beer or even a vegan smoothie.
I can’t promise you things will get better in a hurry, for some they will, but for many the events in Melbourne in the last 18 months will leave scars, big scars, traumatic scars.
And we can place blame and we can act in a manner that in past times we wouldn’t have thought we would – but I am not sure that will help you or me or Melbourne.
We can start to heal by mass pills, mass therapy, mass escape to the country – but will that be right for you or me or Melbourne? I don’t really know.
But you are needed. Really needed now.
Can we ask you not to go, can we ask you to think how you can rebuild our great community, our great city – one brick, one coffee, one cry at a time?
Baby please don’t go. Please be a Melbourne hero and stay and help.
Especially if you have money and resources, please stay and help us rebuild our city, our true identity, ourselves. Please don’t abandon Melbourne physically whilst you are recovering emotionally. You are traumatized, just like we all are in some way. Is this the right time to move – why not give Melbourne one more chance?
Melburnians are going to need you to walk in the hills again and feel special, they will need you to go to dinner and be loving, they want you to come to a show and laugh, a game and boo, a beach and swim.
Melburnians, many of whom have lost so much, need you to do a Kylie and come back or stay and help us all get back on our feet. You know Melbourne was great, the people are great and whoops I almost said it, let’s make Melbourne great again.
Whether you are a Catholic, a Collingwood supporter or a Comanchero we need you to stay.
If you’re an antivaxxer, anti Vic or just an anti. You’re not really an anti – you’re a Melburnian with an opinion and we need you. And we need you to not only hang in there, when you are ready, we need you to push through, to love again, the little things, the big things, to love Melbourne.
If you are a Melburnian and non-violent, you are wanted. Really wanted. We need you.
And we need you to give Melbourne a big hug and we need you to stay, please – just give it another twelve months before you make any life-changing decision. Melbourne is worth it, Melburnians are worth it, and you are worth it. Surely we have some credits for all those great years together!
Baby, please don’t go.
“ How many agents do you know who have bought then sold a home for over $16m in Bayside, over $14m in Stonnington and over $13m in Boroondara this year?
That’s the market you are thinking? Well, those same three homes were all well above current sworn valuations, 40% above what 4 agents told the seller or 30% above the sale price of a very similar home, in the same street, on the market at the same time. Two were off market and one was public. All three have settled – they were real.
But who are they? You never saw their faces on the advertising, their names in the paper or possibly never made a phone call to them. I have worked with them on some of their grand deals and it’s hard to explain what they do, except to say it’s very calm behind the scenes.
It’s probably easier to explain what they don’t do. They don’t allow communication breakdowns, they don’t allow BS to the client or to the agent, they don’t allow restrictive thinking. They do provide left field strategies that can only come from knowing intimately how a buyer and seller think, how a great deal works.
You have heard of the horse whisperers, these two are more the house whisperers, level heads, grand expectations but with low profiles and follow through – continuing to go when for most, the going has got too tough. Stoic and consistent. They are respectful and patient.
They are a pleasure to work with and as they have recommended me at times, I too return the favour in a very genuine way. They do what we agents cannot – they work with us all or they work with one, whatever is in your best interests.
Happy to work with them. Happy to talk to you confidentially about them.”
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