Market View

While market Newspapers and current affairs shows continue to talk in headlines about the Real Estate market, we always like to ask the question “yes, but what does it mean?”. For instance, when we read a press release about a decline in prices we ask “so at what point in time are we at for prices?”

The answer appears to be that prices have wound back all the way to… about halfway through 2017. Not really a “crash”, but I’m sure we’ve seen that word used more than once. Really it looks like the Real Estate car isn’t crashing, it’s just slowing down, and that’s a good thing. The Australian property market has been running like a Formula 1 car qualifying session, when property values are traditionally a Le Mans 24-hour race.

According to Corelogic Data, in the 10 years to January 2018, Melbourne dwelling values increased 72.4%.

72%! Maybe a good idea that we’re not pressing the foot down on the accelerator as hard. (check out the summary of the data in the article here)

And what about where we’re working? We thought you would never ask! North Melbourne… has not moved. It’s remained at the September 2017 peak and this is exactly what we saw back in 2011; we stayed at the peak for about 12 months before it grew again.

What to take out of this? Make sure to listen to your heart about where you want the centre of your world to be and what you want it to look like and then use your head. Check out the data for the suburb you’re interested in and look at what has happened over the last 5, 10, 20 years because that will tell you more about the suburb you want to live in than a headline.