Two weeks to go and the clearance rate fell below 80% for only the second time this season. In the last two weeks of the selling year there is always impatience, both in buyers and sellers alike. We will see people going overboard at auctions in order to secure something before Christmas and not have to wait another 4-6 weeks for the Autumn season to begin.
We will also see many deals done buy anxious sellers not wanting to be left with stale properties across the break. This is always a challenge for Real Estate Agents: they must counsel their vendors when to take a serious look at offers put before them. The easy response from an agent is always “you should go to auction”. They can quote the 80% clearance rate and say 4 out of 5 will sell. Unfortunately the 80% clearance rate includes properties sold before, sold after or passed-in then negotiated to sale, and it also includes sales that didn’t attain good prices, just ordinary prices but the vendor needed to sell.
We currently have three separate clients who are looking seriously at two properties each, and have given us the brief: “make sure we get one or the other before Christmas”. We can put forward fair and reasonable offers on one, and if this is knocked back then we rescind the offer and go after the other one.
We know there are more purchasers than sellers at the moment, but that will thin out as we continue into the festive season. The properties will still be on the market, but plenty of exasperated buyers will call it quits, get into the festive season and forget about property until next year. Impatience in buyers may rise, but numbers can sometimes drop off.
Ian James
