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A number of our staff attended the dawn services for Anzac Day yesterday and we were blown away not only by the service but the younger generation who were in attendance and paid their respect to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom and country. We here at Whitford would like to pay our respects to all of those who have served and sacrificed so that we can be here.
Whitford - Geelong News: Patience is a virtue as they say. Patience is exactly what we need in this current market we are in. Things are taking longer. Buyers are having multiple inspections on properties before they are making a decision.
Whitford - Geelong Property News: I saw an interesting article from Heron Todd White on the weekend and in particular their national property clock. It shows that Geelong is at the bottom of this market cycle. We tend to be approximately three months behind the Melbourne real estate market and this graph shows that Melbourne is at the start of its market recovery.
Whitford - Property Geelong News: We are currently in the middle of school holidays, and we have put Easter behind us. These school holidays are a relatively quiet time from a real estate perspective. We are looking for an uptick in both new listings to the market and buyer activity once the kids return to school.
Whitford - Geelong property News: The Easter long weekend is upon us already. Can you believe it? From all of our staff here at Whitford we wish you and your family a happy and safe Easter. Stay safe on the roads. Historically Easter is a quiet time for us in real estate. We will use these few days to recharge. The first quarter of the 2024 has still been a challenging time in the real estate sector with deals still hard to graft together.
Whitford - Geelong Property News: I was lucky enough to attend Geelong’s opening round match on Saturday night and witness the opening of the Joel Selwood stand in person and see what an amazing stadium we now have on our doorstep, it really is another of the many jewel’s in Geelong’s crown. To add a little extra excitement to the opening of the stand is the news that my favourite restaurant Chin Chin will be opening inside the stadium from late April, if you haven’t been before do yourself a favour when it opens, you won’t be disappointed. I say it regularly, but we are lucky to live in Geelong.
Whitford - Geelong Property News: The guessing game of when the interest rates will start to fall has officially begun. Australia’s economy is experiencing another “very soft quarter” of growth, all but ruling out another interest rate rise by the Reserve Bank despite inflation easing at a slower pace. The RBA board meets for a second time in 2024 next Monday and Tuesday. Callum is a highly knowledgeable real estate sales agent, and he is a rising star on the Geelong real estate scene. Watch the video and get to know Callum a little better.
Whitford - Geelong Property News: We want you to celebrate Easter with us here at Whitford and have the chance to win $500! All you have to do is head over to our Instagram account @whitfordproperty and guess how many Easter eggs are in the basket. This week we are getting to know our sales agent Peter Fort. Pete has been a high performing real estate agent for 28 years. Watch the below video to learn a little bit more about Pete and to see why he is the master of the finger point.
Whitford - Geelong Property News: Tomorrow marks my three year anniversary of taking over the business. It feels like those three years have flown by. We have certainly seen peaks and troughs in the market in this time including an unprecedented thirteen interest rate rises. I am very proud of the fact that in my tenure we have kept a very stable team.
Whitford - Geelong Property News: We know that in its effort to tame inflation, the Reserve Bank was hoping that unemployment levels would rise, and the latest jobless figure released last week was above 4% for the first time in two years. So, does this mean the Reserve Bank’s job is now done and we can expect interest rates to fall?
At times I think we can forget how lucky we are to live in Geelong and the lifestyle that it provides us. It is a truly beautiful part of the world with our prized waterfront, great cafes and restaurants and our easy access to the Bellarine Peninsula and the surf coast.
Most of you may know but some of you may not know that our team features on a radio program on BayFM on Saturday morning between 8-10am, the show is called the Bay Property Guide and covers all things real estate.
This week saw all of the kids across the Geelong region returning to school. My oldest son had his first day of Kinder on Tuesday and Katie’s two children headed back this week.
This long weekend is certainly a busy weekend for the Geelong region. We have the Cadel Evans bike race and the Festival of Sails along our prized waterfront. The bike race has the ability to impact our open for inspections on Saturday as the race weaves through Geelong and the Surf Coast. There will be road closures as the cyclists ride through, so please check the course before heading to one of our opens as we would hate for you to be stuck in a road closure.
Things in the real estate world are certainly looking brighter this year if the first two weeks are anything to go by. Buyer enquiry has been solid, and we have had a number of prospective vendors making contact with us about selling in the first quarter of this year. I remember coming back to the office in January last year and we were met with deathly silence, we knew we were in for a long year with the prospect of multiple interest rate rises hanging over our heads like a dark cloud.
Happy New Year, we hope 2024 is a prosperous year for everyone. We hope you all enjoyed a well earned break. Our team are now back on deck and we are very optimistic about the year ahead. With yesterday’s favourable inflation figures and the media now speaking positively about the future and the property market, we are tipping strong growth in property and with multiple predicted interest rate cuts we think this will only add fuel to the fire.
The Christmas break is fast approaching and I bet you are all counting down the days, we certainly are as it has been a long and taxing year with many ups and downs. Some key dates that you will need to be aware of are that our office will be closing on Thursday 21st of December at 1pm and opening on Wednesday January 3rd at 9am.
Australia’s economy surprisingly slowed in the September quarter, as the toll of higher interest rates hit consumers and trade turned negative. Gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 0.2% in the September quarter compared with the previous three months, marking an eighth consecutive quarter of growth.
Has Christmas come early for mortgage holders and the real estate market? Households are almost certain to be spared another rate rise when the Reserve Bank’s board convenes for its final meeting of 2023 next week after inflation eased in October. The latest consumer price index figures, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, showed annual inflation eased to 4.9 per cent in October, after prices grew by 5.6 per cent in September
It is becoming more and more apparent that we are experiencing a two pace market. There is the market for homes that have been renovated recently or they don’t need any maintenance and these homes are in high demand and there is the market for homes that need renovating/maintenance or development sites and these types of properties are far more difficult to sell.
With five working Saturday’s left until Christmas things are starting to get hectic in our office. Our sales team are frantically trying to get homes onto the market and sold before Christmas as well as trying to sell our existing stock, we feel the market might come home with a wet sail up until Christmas.
The RBA didn’t do us any favours on Tuesday lifting the official cash rate to 4.35%. What does this mean for the market? Buyer sentiment will be low until the dust settles and then buyer sentiment will improve.
It feels like Groundhog Day. Here we are waiting to see if we will we see a Melbourne Cup rate rise next week? The media says "yes", the bank economists say "yes", the market is split 50/50.
Newtown Giveaway - Celebrating our neighbourhood! We have an exciting giveaway happening so keep your eyes on our social media pages in the coming days as we will be launching a competition with some of our local Newtown businesses who each will be offering up fantastic prizes.
The official spring selling season has officially begun and there is one major factor that is already evident. The influx of new properties on the market that we expect in the week after the AFL grand final has not come as yet.
The AFL grand final long weekend is here again, and the weather gods are smiling on us. Let’s hope for a great game and an even contest that goes down to the wire.
Finance pre approvals have increased sharply recently which means buyers have been to their bank or mortgage broker and are preparing themselves to buy. Some banks have cut their fixed term loan rates, which means they are hedging their bets that there will be no more interest rate rises.
On a day like today I think it is much more important to ask this question than talk about real estate.R U OK? Is calling on all of us to let the people you care about know you're here, to really hear them. By taking the time for an R U OK? conversation and genuinely listening with an open mind, we can all help the people in our world feel supported and connected. Let the people in your world know you’re here, to really hear, because a conversation could change a life.
A third interest rate pause is leading us to see a lot more positivity in the market place. During the previous 18 months and the twelve interest rate increases every second buyer was asking us when we thought the hikes would end and it was creating a lot of uncertainty amongst buyers and was causing them fear to commit to a purchase. I now honestly can’t remember the last time a buyer said that to me but it would be a few months at least.
Households are almost certain to be spared from another rate rise when the Reserve Bank meets next week after inflation eased amid falling consumer demand. The latest Consumer Price Index figures, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, show annual inflation eased to 4.9 per cent in July, down from 5.4 per cent in June.
New data shows that high-end homebuyers splashed nearly $62m on the Geelong region’s most expensive residential properties in the financial year.The region’s ten most expensive homes sold during the 2022-2023 financial year reveal the appetite for luxury property in the region hasn’t waned.
In good news for those stuck in "mortgage prison", Australia’s biggest bank, CBA, has announced it will lower the stress test on select refinance applications from 3 percentage points to just 1 percentage point.
I found these recent stats really interesting and please note these stats are for Melbourne and not Geelong. Melbourne house values have only increased by a mere 1.6% between March 2020 and May 2023, which is significantly lower than other capital cities in Australia.
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