Strap in folks! This is not the column I thought I would be writing.
This year the market has jumped out of the gates and enquiry has exploded! We have had apartments where open-house attendees in November/December were two-four groups per week and now we are seeing 20-plus groups at the open houses! And it’s not just the units. I auctioned a home on Saturday at Amy Street, Bulimba, with nine registered bidders and fast bidding before a sale at $2,306,000!
Brisbane has a reputation of going into Christmas at one speed and coming out another speed. When I got back from our annual Straddie pilgrimage, I was expecting a lacklustre start until Australia Day – then likely a rate rise in February to flatten our enquiry before an uplift in March. But that is not the case at all. Buyers are out in force and have been since the first few days of January.
This being driven largely by two converting tenant groups. One is the first-home buyers. These people are frustrated with the increase to their rent and have made the decision to buy rather than pay the increases. There is great government support for first-home buyers and they are licking up the incentives like ice-cream. The second group are those interstate migrants that are coming off leases that they signed when they moved to Queensland last year. They saw a cooling in the market and now a more stable interest rate environment. This is giving them the confidence to buy. Couple this with their long term confidence in Brisbane and our low comparative prices, and you get a market too good to resist.