This week’s been a mixed bag from one extreme to the other with a great start on Tuesday getting three sales over the line then everything came to a crashing halt from Wednesday onwards, which coincidentally was the day after Greater Shepparton City Council voted not to close Andrew Fairley Avenue. Phone activity was very quiet later in the week and this weeks Open Homes were probably the worst Saturday of Open Homes that we’ve ever had with no-one attending 6 out of our 7 opens. Why is this so I wonder, well I believe that the economy was still reeling from all the fuss about the budget then we got a double hit with the council vote regarding the road. In last week’s newsletter I commented that I hoped the Shepparton council would make the right decision in regard to Andrew Fairley Avenue, and, as everyone’s entitled to an opinion, I’m going to declare that I believe that it was too great of a risk for the council to bet a significant slice of the economic future of our area on the retention of a 200 metre stretch of road. Certainly the roadway is an important passageway which I use virtually every day, but I think the comment made by Fruit Growers Victoria general manager John Wilson sums up the situation when he said ‘the council decision was understandable, but might not be in the best economic interest of the district.’ (Shepparton News 12/6/14) Shepparton already has the most affordable housing in Australia and in the event of the SPC closing, I am sure the area could be put into situations never before thought possible. I guess time will tell. A report released this week by the Boston Consulting Group showed that 1 in 50 Australian households has more than 1 million in liquid wealth which includes cash, funds and liquid securities but excludes businesses, residences and luxury goods. Australia is 14th on the list which is led by America where occupants of 1 in 18 households are millionairs. As mentioned previously, Realestate.au are about to put their feature properties up from an across the board price of $115 a month for any property, to $240 per month for Kialla and $208 a month for both Shepparton and Mooroopna. Features properties as you are probably aware put a house on the front few pages of their site which generally results in up to 8 times the number of property views. This price change is going to occur on the 18th of June and we have only a couple of upgrades still available at the old price so if you would like to secure one, please ring or email our office straight away. We came across a young couple during the week who had their Shepparton home valued three years ago by a licenced valuer engaged by a bank at $220,000 and just the other day had another valuation completed through the same bank which came in at $185,000. As a flow on to the European Central Banks decision to push interest rates into negative territory it’s believed that cheaper interest rates for Australia could be seen in the near future. This news comes at the same time as reports show that first home buyers are losing out to investors and that a lot of first home buyers are now putting tenants into the homes they are buying and living with their parents so they can afford the mortgage repayments which really seems to defeat the whole point of buying a house in the first place but I guess it gets them into the market. Locally there’s some very good value out there in housing for investors, especially in the lower 200K range and my advice to anyone thinking of buying an investment property in this range is that, perhaps the right time is now so check out what’s on offer. Before you actually start inspecting properties though I’d further suggest that you sit down with a lender or broker so that you know exactly how much you can spend as having that knowledge can put you in a very powerful position. We are currently hosting a German exchange student through Rotary and a friend of his came to dinner the other night who was an exchange student from Taiwan called Alan who attends a private school back home. The surprising thing about Alan’s education in Taiwan was that he attends school from 7 am to 8 pm Monday through Friday and from 7 am to 4 pm every second Saturday. It was also interesting to find out that when after finishing school each day and getting home, Alan eats and studies for several hours until sometimes 2 am in the morning before rising after 4 hours sleep to start it all again at 6 am. This week’s useless information is:- The first video cassette recorder built in 1956 was the size of an upright refrigerator. In 1889, the commissioner of the United Stated Patent office announced that ‘Everything that can be invented, has been invented. Most cows give more milk when they listen to music. 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, 15 Jun 2014 23:18:53 +0000