Whilst Sky News recently reported that Melbourne has just lived through its coldest summer since 2002, the same thing could certainly not be said about its Real Estate market!
Victoria underwent a 5-day circuit breaker lockdown in mid-February, bringing physical auctions to a standstill with less than 24-hours’ notice, but even that did not stop the momentum of the local market, with buyers and agents quickly transitioning to the business practices that they adopted through much of 2020 to get their deals done.
February saw the continuation of outstanding results with the median auction price for houses in Melbourne increasing 9.3% year on year to a record high of $1.12 million. Noel Jones recorded an exceptional 100% clearance rate of our properties at auction across the month; this is in comparison to the Melbourne figure of 75.3% which was the best result on record since April 2017. Melbourne’s outer east had the highest clearance rate of any region with 84.5% of properties selling at auction, whilst the inner east recorded the third highest clearance rate with 78.8%, results that are approximately 11% better than this time last year. This reflects continued buyer confidence in the eastern corridor where our Noel Jones offices operate, and the majority of our transactions occur.
Quality properties are still selling swiftly due to low stock levels, and buyers fearing that if they don’t act quickly, they’ll miss out. This is pushing up sales prices and leading some banks to forecast a national property price growth of 9% by the end of 2021. We also saw home loans hit record numbers for the second month in a row according to ABS lending data, another sign that buyers are returning to the marketplace.
On March 28th, we will see an end to the year-long rental moratorium that was put in place throughout the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on March 29th, we will see the commencement of the Residential Tenancies Amendment Act. Our Noel Jones Property Management teams have been working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure all systems and processes are ready, and that they are fully versed on all the modifications, allowing them to support landlords to make all necessary transitions in a manner that is as smooth, pain-free and cost effective as possible.
As always, our knowledgeable staff are on hand to assist you with all thing’s property, so contact us if we can be of assistance.
