James Buy Sell Market News with Off Markets every Monday
Stop Press: Today, April 1st, Jellis Craig, Kay and Burton and Marshall White announced they are merging to form a super company called Green is Good, based on the 1980’s business theory, but updated to reflect agents new world environmental credentials.
Another big week in property for us and if you think the market has not changed since later last year when it was a dog – then that’s fair enough – but we don’t agree.
It has changed dramatically since pre-Xmas on individual homes that are special and in some micro-markets (eg Boroondara).
But as we said – a break from the market this week. Back to absolute beachfront.
9 Towers Road Toorak building values will last forever – it’s a classic – it will never be bulldozed – it will go up in value for as long as people appreciate genius. But the money will be made by the current owner, the second one, as the first sold as the dream was completing. I had never met the architects, nor the original owners – we did not buy this home on the quiet, on reputation or for glitz and glam, it was bought for our clients on substance – it was and still is a classic.
Maxwell House Toorak in above podcast was a home that was sold on a timeframe to get the maximum crispiness factor – before any dating. Advice was given, advice was taken, and the numbers speak for themselves.
I buy 30 to 50 homes a year for clients, mainly in the $3m to $30m price range and I have for over 20 years. I first ran into Marcus Chiminello more than a decade ago when two years running, we awarded him the Young Agent of the Year. Marcus is in my Top 5 agents that I have worked with or competed against and a consistent record breaker.
Overall, today was a tale of two markets and it’s not about price – it’s about area.
If you were selling in Boroondara and you were priced correctly, then you sold well. In fact, it’s not too far of a stretch to say (as we did last week) that the Boroondara market is now officially hot (for now).
However, if you were selling in Stonnington or Bayside markets (both) then there has been some improvement from last year’s pre-Christmas M4 market – and officially your auction markets are borderline lukewarm and Stonnington is warmer than Bayside (must be the sea breeze).
Today was fiery – yes on a small sample – but bidders were fighting like they have not fought in some time. Late last year nobody bid – it was a ghost town in all markets except Boroondara – but Boroondara was only warm; not hot like it felt today.
Price is not market – we use the term market price as a catch-all to give an adjective to price – but it’s about as meaningful as “wonderful price or low price or high price.”
Price is a number. Price is what you pay or what you get, and the number is almost always different from what you want, what you ask, what others think value is, what the agent quote started at.
In a transaction the only truth about price is the number paid – not the description attached.
Today we felt a market returning to a feeling of going forward.
Early days – Feb Pep? It was a nice feeling.
In 2023 you will start to see more obvious changes in how we buy and sell and how we report, how we value (because of what we value) and how we achieve desirable outcomes, for our buy and sell clients. It’s never all blooming roses, no false promises, but you can get what you want if you know what it is and go about it the right way.
You know, like an egg or for you vegans a piece of tofu that slides off your brand-new fry pan as soon as there’s a little tilt – trouble for sellers is many buyers are missing the toast and going straight to the floor if they don’t like the price.