Interstate investors flood Ipswich housing market while local buyers wait out lockdown

Owner occupiers seeking that ‘warm, fluffy feeling’ in a home, are up against stiff competition from investors who are happy to buy property without an in-person viewing.

First home buyer Kane Ramon bought his "forever home" in Yamanto in April, 2021, after six months of inspecting houses throughout Ipswich.

Ipswich home buyers may cop the brunt of the lockdown as interstate buyers and investors continue to snap up local properties.

Buyers looking for a home to live in are hesitant to sign a contract without first walking through a property but a lack of open homes and one-on-one inspections has done nothing to perturb business-minded buyers, nor those from outside of the state.

One first-home buyer searching in Ipswich who opted to stay anonymous said she and her partner were unlikely to place an offer on a home the duo hadn’t set foot in.

“We are looking for something we can verify the value of,” she said.

“Physically seeing it and touching it is a big part of that, psychologically.”

The woman and her husband, both in their late 20s, have been looking to buy their first home and watching the region’s real estate for several months.

She said the lockdown had put the search on hold for the pair.

“We are always looking to see what becomes available on the market,” she said.

“But if we can’t inspect then that delays the potential of a purchase.”

Before the lockdown was announced on Saturday, the property market was pumping, with local and interstate buyers eager to snap up more homes than were for sale.

The latest lockdown has meant the end of open homes and even one-on-one inspections, meaning anyone keen to put an offer on a property will need to do so before setting foot inside.

Real estate agents say the lockdown has given investors a “clear run” to snap up property.

“The quantity of buyers has definitely dropped,” Ipswich real estate agent Harry Gale said.

“More than in previous weeks, there are local buyers who are sitting on the fence because they are a little bit hesitant (without first inspecting).

“But the interstate buyers are just through the roof at the moment.”

Mr Gale said investors usually were the “second choice” for sellers who often preferred to sell to owner occupiers.

“They’re more likely to sell to someone who’s going to come in and live in it but if their only option is to sell to an investor that’s just exactly what’s going to happen,” he said.

“Since going into lockdown, I’ve seen the number of investors in the market triple because they see it as their opportunity without local competition.”

Ipswich real estate agent Veronika Jasiecki said, within half an hour of listing a house on Thursday, she received four phone calls and three email inquiries.

“Three of those people were interstate investors,” she said.

Ms Jasiecki said the biggest challenge during lockdown was in not being able to show buyers properties in person.

“I’m doing things out of the box, like video walk-throughs,” she said.

For interstate buyers and many investors, being limited to video tours of property is nothing new.

“Those people have never had a problem buying site unseen,” Ms Jasiecki said.

On the other side, a lot of locals were submitting offers with a ‘subject to viewing’ clause.

“Some of these properties may go to investors rather than locals because investors are more willing to take a house unseen,” she said.

“Whereas a lot of local buyers are owner occupiers getting into the market and they want that fluffy warm feeling of walking into a place and seeing it.”

Read more news by Ebony Graveur here.