May 2020- South Sydney Property Review- Billy Couldwell

I was expecting the market to be much worse than it is to be honest. This month I have exchanged more properties than I have all year, half of which have been sold to buyers before hitting the major web portals.

During lock-down I chose not to auction, however now that restrictions have eased, I have started booking them in. Astonishingly, on Saturday, Sydney's auction clearance rates were 76% of the reported results, the adjusted rate may be much lower as only 82 from 149 auctions were reported compared to 133 from 180 on the same weekend last year.

A very unpredictable market we are in, with RP Data recording a 0.4% increase in Sydney property prices in April which was clearly a month of two very different fortnights. May data will likely tell a different story.

Personally, I am finding the market sentiment to be refreshingly positive, given the pandemic. The shock value has begun to wear off and I am once having quality, solution-based conversations with clients regarding their short-term real estate goals, and pragmatic planning around the relative changeover costs associated in buying and selling in the same market without all the talk of Covid.

Many clients looking to upgrade have now caught on to the fact that they are in a much stronger net position. They realise the potential savings available when purchasing in this market heavily outweigh the relatively small sacrifice (if any) they will experience when selling their own asset. There is naturally more drive from the lower-end of the market as you move through price brackets.

The institutionalized Sydney property market can not only be very difficult to predict as we saw last year, but also very hard to stop. Australia's obsession with property is more apparent than ever at a time like this. Despite household confidence levels being at all-time lows, it has not stopped people thinking about their next move. I have been getting loads of inquiry across all my stock. I had 25 groups through a house in Pagewood on Saturday and have sold three properties before they hit the market this month.

For the short term I have given up on speculating the future of this market to avoid embarrassment and save energy, but given the month we have just had, following what has been dished out in the media and the unemployment stats which don't lie, I am quite positive as a property owner and real estate agent about the months ahead of us.

Billy Couldwell