In case you haven’t seen any news in the last year or so, property prices in Melbourne (& Sydney) have been falling. But in the news last week, we read Foreign Investment In Real Estate Collapses. Wow! Who would have known?
This information from the Foreign Investment Board relates to the 2017/18 statistics, showing a decline of 58% on the previous year, which was also down by 59% on the year before. So, 8 months after the event, this is a current headline. This is no an unusual event. By the time that most commentary on the market is published, it is already dated.
Even the latest monthly statistics published on 1st March, showing that there have been annual falls in Melbourne of over 9% and over 10% in Sydney are likely to cause gloom to owners seeking to sell. But this still relies on delayed results and there is more bad news in the pipeline.
The irony is that the mood in the market is already starting to improve, even when the news from the media could barely seem worse. Late last year, buyers, for the most part, simply stopped buying. Even steep price cuts weren’t creating sales. This has now changed. Buyers are trickling back and properly priced properties are now attracting sales again; sometimes quickly.
So just treat tomorrow’s news headline with a little caution and consider how current the event or statistic being reported actually is, before you allow it to influence your decision making. We don’t expect the property market to bounce back any time soon, but the steep descent of recent times appears to have already been arrested. There are now likely to be some genuine bargains around that time will demonstrate to have been a missed opportunity.