The market has changed.

Overall, there are fewer buyers per home than immediately post Lockdown 6.

Some say an easing of 5% in the last month – that is fair. (Michael Armstrong of Kay and Burton’s, Monday Morning Snap two weeks ago – good summary).

This easing is also to be expected.

Demand is down and Supply is up, so that means Price is ?

Yes, down.

Why?

No one reason, it’s a combination of things.

1. More stock – And that feels the biggest reason and that occurs every November since Adam was a boy. And it’s not only more stock on-market – we are knee deep in off-markets or next year’s homes getting ready. Buyers can sense this and therefore they don’t feel the urgency of now now now they felt in October.

2. Fatigue – as a city we are traumatised and many who didn’t buy or sell in October on the adrenalin rushes have now got to the had a gutful stage and they have put the cue in the rack until next year.

3. As well the pundits, banks and predictors have started to tell their fiction stories again and the media with little to do are reporting these with the usual misguided reverence. The bedtime fables are seemingly largely negative of the future. Ok, they were last year as well – they got it wrong in 2020. They got it wrong in 2019 and 2018 and 2017 as well – chances are they may get the 50/50 coin toss right eventually and give themselves a pat on the back for a 20% correct fairy tale prediction rate.

We think a negative market right now is a generalization. We see things more as the normal ebb and flow and to give you some perspectives we have revisited our Lockdown Price Guide in Graph 1 below. What we are seeing may be no more than a flesh wound or the usual November itchy rash.

In Graph 2 with the REIV help we have given you the longer term bigger picture on the median movements of Toorak, Brighton, Albert Park and Hawthorn. It really does show strong surges since late 2019 – and you could be adding 20% onto those markets during Lockdown. BUT perhaps you are missing the mark to be adding 50% onto your home’s value over the last 5 years as you forgot about the Grand Canyon price drop of 2018.

The exciting thing about our industry, it’s like the horse races and the footy you never know for sure. We feel we will have to wait until Labour Day weekend 2022 to call it definitively one way or the other and our bet says the market will definitely……… (sorry, ran out of ink).

On the flip side, we bought an off market this week that broke records – well done Kathy Malcolm and Dave Oster. Marcus and Nicole also broke records in Rowland St Kew. Sarah Case and Warwick Anderson with no car parking got another huge East Melbourne number. And the ever-reliable Scott Patterson and Bec Edwards blew all expectations out of the water for a south facing, Grace Park home, when you consider the Hilda result only a few weeks before. Simon Gowling has done it again – another almost $10million auction in Albert Park. Andrew Hayne and Fiona Ansell Jones push the Wheatland Road Malvern record even higher halfway between $6.5m and $7.0m or near on $12,000 per improved sqm WOW. So yes, absolutely a number of sad sacks hanging around with no Christmas filler, but records are still being broken on the A-graders with interest.

Santa isn’t dead yet, a few of his reindeer are just a little tired and partially traumatised.