This week’s again been steady with lots of properties coming onto the market which is in line with expectations for this time of year and it’s pleasing to see that some vendors are presenting their properties immaculately and pricing them at realistic market prices which will no doubt put them at the top of buyers lists. As a point of discussion I wanted to bring to your attention the following. We have all seen the number of housing estates popping up and the new houses being built. Well did you realise that every new house built effectively reduces sales in the established housing market by around 4 sales. How you might ask? Well nearly all of these homes are being built by first home buyers because of government grants of up to sometimes $50,000. In normal times without these grants first home buyers would generally buy an established home in the same price range of say $240,000 which then allows the owner of this home to upgrade to a low $300,000 house. The flow on is that the sellers of this property then generally upgrade to a $400K plus home after which the seller of this home generally downsizes to a smaller home. So you can now see that if the buyer of the first property is taken out of the market by the offer of a new home then the flow on through the normal housing market can be significant which I believe is happening to a significant degree locally. As a further thought to this scenario, the government misses out on stamp duty for all of these extra sales and agents get commission on the sale of a block of land instead of multiple sales. A story in ‘The Age’ this week detailed how apartments on the city fringe have plummeted in price lately due to oversupply with one purchased off the plan in 2010 for $577,200 sold last month at a loss of $97,200 whilst another one lost 53% of the initial purchase price. Only one of 12 SouthbankONE tower units resold over the past 4 years made its owner a profit. Rentals have also dropped 3.6% over that time to an average of $515 per week. Locally we saw a property sell recently for under $495 (we don’t know exactly as we didn’t sell it) which was purchased in 2005 for $550. I listed a house the other day where the tenant told me that if I can sell the house prior to this coming Sunday the 12th of October she will name her soon to be born child after me if it is a boy. So, if you would like to potentially bring another Ken into this world check out the property at 29 Howitt Rd Shepparton on our web site which is a 4 BR BV listed at $282,000 and let me know if you would like to inspect it. There was quite a sobering program on SBS 2 called ‘The Feed’ last week which detailed the use of ICE in Victorian country towns and specifically referred to Horsham and Shepparton. With regard to our local area the program stated that we are battling a crippling drug problem and people interviewed made statements such as Shepparton being an unsafe place and that a number of people have moved away because of it and a couple of scenes in the story actually made Shepparton look like a ghost town which wasn’t good for our image. ICE is certainly a real problem and if you missed the program I have included a link below to it. sbs.au/ondemand/video/333200451999/Ice-Towns-I-The-Feed Rules for agents were changed recently in that agents now are required by law to give buyers a Due Diligence Checklist and also have to have these documents available at open homes and provide a link to the document on their web site. Failure to provide this document and link is an offence for which agents apparently receive an infringement notice. We have already added this document which can be found on our web site in the buyer section. A survey I read during the week showed that 51% of all internet traffic for real estate is video related and that listings with videos generate up to 400% more enquiries. Just a bit more on the changes to the Sale of Land Act 1962 which came into effect on 1/10/14. Full details can be found at consumer.vic.gov.au/duediligencechecklist and include the following:- • A Section 32 (Vendor statement) needs to be given to a purchaser before they sign a contract however the Section 32 does not need to be attached to a contract of sale. •Prospective buyers must be given a Due Diligence Checklist which does not form part of the Sect 32 or contract of sale. • ◦A warning notice must be inserted for off the plan sales Full details can be found at consumer.vic.gov.au/duediligencechecklist This week’s useless information is: • The lungfish can live out of water for up to 4 years. •There are 2,598,960 five card hands possible in a 52 deck of cards. •On average 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. I am always available to answer any of your real estate questions on 5831 6405. Please feel free to pass this email on to any person who you think may be interested in its contents. NOTE: The advice given in this newsletter is to be taken as general advice only and should not be relied upon. Regards Ken McNamara. Footnotes: If you would like to receive this email automatically every Saturday afternoon please email our office with the subject line of ‘subscribe to newsletter’ Ken is the number 1 selling residential agent in the Shepparton area was the winner of the 2011 Chamber of Commerce Business Excellence Award and was a finalist in the 2012 awards.
Posted on: Sun, 05 Oct 2014 22:33:23 +0000
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