Interest rates fail to freeze appetite for Downs

Staff reports editor@thedailyjournal.ink

The latest numbers are out, showing that the real estate market is continuing to bubble in a manner matching day-time temperatures. Listings continue to be a struggle for local agents looking for stock to sell, in contrast with the situation in Brisbane, where total listings are down just 0.8% on the peak a year ago - suggesting that the problem in the big smoke is not to do with stock being pulled, but stock simply not selling as interest rates climb the Reserve Bank stairs.

The median unit price in Brisbane dropped by just -0.2 per cent in December, bringing quarterly gains into the negative at -1.2 per cent. Over the past 12 months, Brisbane units have increased in value by +5.0 per cent, with the median price currently sitting at just under $490,000. Median total sales in Brisbane are down almost 5% on last year to $698.204.

Warwick’s postcode recorded $43.4 million in sales in the pre and post Christmas period from mid-November through to the first week of February with an average price of $429,876 and median price of $385,000. These figures don’t include private sales and sales of properties not registered with CoreLogic. In the Stanthorpe 4380 postcode which includes EUkey, Greenland and Mt Tully a total of $18.8 million in sales were logged with the mean actually higher than Warwick’s at $438,953 and a median price of a neat $400,000.

On a lighter note, we checked out CoreLogic’s register of real estate sales in the region, a real estate sticky-beak which we do reasonably regularly like every red blooded Australian, and scrolled down the lines of the selling agents looking at who was busy before and after Christmas. There were the usual suspects (Southern Downs Realty, LJ Hooker, Warwick Real Estate, Helen Harm, George and Fuhrman on the Warwick end and even ‘celebrity’ real estate agent Darryl Evans doing a couple of sales after his ‘retirement’!...while on the Stanthorpe sde Stanthorpe Real Estate and Cec Mann dominated, with Crisp Real Estate and other names in hot pursuit as the market continues to run hot in the cold country) but there was one that stood out, head and shoulders, from all the others. Uploadtest Do Not Respond - Test Ads Only was the agent…apparently…of a property at Swan Creek. Despite it’s policy of Not Responding, and running Test Ads Only, the agent managed to sell 240 Kemps Road for a healthy $745,000. Some people will buy anything…off anyone!