Best time to buy since 2020

By Jo Kennett

IT’S OFFICIAL. According to the latest data on Australia’s regional property market, it is now definitely a buyer’s market in the Tweed Shire — at least way more than it has been over the last couple of years.

Core Logic have just released their quarterly regional report of 25 of Australia’s largest noncapital city regions, examining performance across both house and unit markets over the 12 months to April 2023.

We have to take into account that the data for the RichmondTweed includes a whole lot more than our shire and some very expensive real estate in the Byron area, but more on that later.

After an insane boom in prices over the great pandemicled migration out of the cities and into the regions, and an accompanying buying and selling frenzy, the market has really turned.

The Richmond-Tweed area was the worst performing region in most categories in the nation, but that’s only if you’re selling and not bad at all when you think of what your property was worth prepandemic.

We had the lowest yearly growth in values in the country, a correction down of 24.2 per cent.

Over the past couple of years house values in the area surged 51 per cent and despite the sharp drop, values remain 14.4 per cent above pre-COVID levels.

The Richmond-Tweed region also had the biggest drop in the nation in sales volumes, down 39.9 per cent from April 2022 when a lot of our mates were deciding to cash in on the crazy home prices, pay off the mortgage and get the heck out of dodge.

We’d try to tell them they were mad to leave paradise and their amazing friends, but they’d truck off anyway, as if we counted for nothing.

Our region also had the highest vendor discounts for houses, dropping prices 7.9 per cent on average, which is usually factored into the asking price, although a year ago it was 3.9 per cent with property in hot demand.

We were pipped at the post by the Shoalhaven for the longest time on the market though the Tweed Shire performed comparatively well against the Byron Shire, as usual dragging the whole tone of the neighbourhood, and stats, down.

A year ago houses in our region were on the market for an average of 41 days, while to April this year it was 71 days.

We fared better on the unit market, only taking out one of the biggest drop awards.

We recorded the highest annual drop in values of regional units over the 12 months to April, down 13.9 per cent, but then things had been getting a little crazy so it’s probably not a bad thing.

The volume of unit sales was down 26.5 per cent, which wasn’t as much as houses.

Richmond-Tweed came runnersup in the slowest sales times for units across the country, with a median time on the market of 60 days.

There were 4,247 properties sold in the Richmond-Tweed region in the 12 months to February this year.

The most house sales were for properties in the one to two million-dollar range, though that’s just what they seem to cost these days, ditto for units in the $600,000 to $800,000 range.

The days on the market stats for houses was dragged down by Byron (73) and Richmond Shire (98), with Tweed Shire homes selling relatively quickly at 59 days and units were only on the market in the Tweed for 48 days on average.

The Richmond Shire includes places like Casino and Kyogle which have way cheaper real estate than Tweed and Byron despite all the beef.

The stats look much better across the board for the Tweed Shire than Byron and Richmond.

A total of 1,024 houses sold here to April this year, with the number of sales down 38.9 per cent. House values were down 21.3 per cent to a median value of $920,858 which means many locals are no longer paper millionaires. Median vendor discounting was 6 per cent.

A total of 887 units sold in the Tweed Shire in the 12 months to April, a drop of 21.5 per cent with a median price of $662,079. The drop in unit values was 9.2 per cent which was much better than the 13.9 per cent for the Richmond-Tweed region. Sellers were only dropping prices by 4.7 per cent on average.

Okay, I think we all need to sit down and have a drink after all those numbers.

I’m a glass half full kind of gal and I reckon the whole easing of the market is a good thing.

It means there is more scope to buy in, less stress when buying (no punch ups at the auction), you are likely to get a better deal and you could end up owning a piece of Nirvana.

On the other hand, if you are a buyer you can’t really complain. The value of your property has risen significantly in the last two years and if you do decide to sell you shouldn’t have any trouble snagging a sale as long as your price takes into account all these factors.