Motivated buyers are serious about new homes during pandemic

Is now a good time to sell your home? We asked five local agents about the property market in Brisbane North and which areas are “going ballistic”.

This property at 10 Berlina Cl, Bracken Ridge sold for $930,000 recently – a record for a standard non-acreage block in the area, according to Ray White Bracken Ridge.

THE residential property market may have changed its modus operandi as a result of COVID-19 restrictions but it seems even a global pandemic doesn’t stop people buying or selling a home.

In Brisbane North, property numbers may be down but houses are still selling for market price (with a suburb record in one sale) and motivated buyers are still buying, according to local real estate agents.

This is despite the fact open homes have moved to private booked inspections and auctions have moved online.

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Ray White Bracken Ridge principal Roxanne Paterson said she sold three properties at the beginning of the restrictions – two were street records ($480,000 and $720,000) and another was a suburb record for Bracken Ridge ($930,000 for a six-bedroom home on a 953 sqm block).

In the week ending April 13 the agency listed seven new properties, held 68 private inspections, received 18 submitted offers, and four properties went under contract.

“It was really reassuring for everyone,” Mrs Paterson said.

“These weekly figures are comparable to a normal good week pre-COVID. Open homes would normally attract more people but these are private booked inspections.

“Naturally the market has changed; the way we do things is completely different. However the buyers we’ve got have been serious.

“No-one has pulled their home off the market but one sale has been paused as the seller is a vulnerable elderly lady.

“People are still wanting to sell their properties. The numbers looking at properties are decreasing because we’re not doing open homes but serious buyers are still out there.

“I listed one home on Monday afternoon and had three text messages within an hour and 20 inquiries overnight about it.”

Mrs Paterson said Sandgate and Brighton were both “going ballistic”.

“In Brighton I had a property go live and in the first week had five offers on it. The demand is still there,” she said.

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Place Estate Agents Nundah principal Steve Grimbas said the volume of listings dropped off in the first couple of weeks during the COVID-19 crisis.

“But inquiries are up a little bit now and I’d like to think that they would continue,” Mr Grimbas said.

“We’re doing private viewings and live streaming and there are more serious buyers. People still need to put a roof over their heads.

“I do believe that with residential real estate there might be that initial slump that happens but people do get on with life.”

Mr Grimbas said inquiries were fairly strong in Wavell Heights, Nundah, Nudgee, Virginia and Banyo, with one home at Nundah selling in four days within the past fortnight.

Harcourts Chermside principal Nick Thornton said prices had remained stable across the board but the number of investors had definitely dropped off.

He said the auction clearance rate over the past two weekends had been running at 50 per cent, compared to about 65 per cent before COVID-19 restrictions.

“The reason is there are usually more numbers going to a physical auction,” he said.

“Over the last two weekends we had six auctions each weekend. Six sold under the hammer and one from each weekend sold after the auction with multiple offers.”

Mr Thornton said the inquiry rate for properties had dropped from 25-30 a day to about three.

“I used to do about 8-12 appraisals a week, that was until about the end of March. For this month so far I’ve only done seven.

“Interest rates are the lowest they’ve been historically. If you are a seller at the moment there’s not much stock so if you were considering selling you might have to take a little bit less but your property will not sit on the market for months.

“There’s still a good demand out there,” Mr Thornton said.

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Watt Realty Aspley sales manager Richard Parker said he had sold four homes in the past 7-10 days.

“These sales are 100 per cent on market value – we haven’t seen a decline in pricing,” Mr Parker said.

“Owners’ number one concern is that prices have taken a drop but there’s no indication of that.

“We saw nine consecutive months of growth coming into the end of March.”

Mr Parker said buyer inquiries were down but “nobody is coming to look at a house unless they are wanting to buy a house”.

“There’s certainly a portion of the market dealing with hardship. A couple of deals have fallen through recently because people have lost their jobs.

“But there’s still a large proportion of people working and mortgages are still in place. People are still wanting to move, buy and live in a home. It’s an investment decision.

“One fellow at the weekend had the property on the market for three months before it sold in the middle of a pandemic.”

Mr Parker said no one suburb was more prominent than others, with properties selling from Albany Creek to Brighton.

“Cheaper properties on the market are probably performing better than the more expensive ones. If you have a freehold house and land it seems to be performing much better than townhouses and units.

“It’s still quite a balanced market but a lot of buyers are speculating it will fall in their favour.”

LJ Hooker Lutwyche principal Ray O’Brien said they had experienced a 60-80 per cent drop in buyer inquiries “but the 20 per cent who are left are pretty fair dinkum they’re going to buy something”.

Mr O’Brien said the coronavirus crisis had resulted in a “catch 22 situation” for real estate.

“There’s been a majority of people who would have put their property for sale in the past month, they haven’t done so because they’re worried about coronavirus,” he said.

“But they still have something they want to achieve by selling their house. When this crisis settles down – in the next three to six months – we will have a lot of properties on the market all at the same time.

“On the other hand, there are people who may come out to buy when this is all over, but if they haven’t done their investigations (by viewing homes) they will still not be ready to buy straight away.”

Mr O’Brien said the agency was still receiving a lot of rental inquiries, but was struggling to find tenants for cheaper properties around $250/week.

“Anything expensive is gone. But the people who are struggling are struggling to afford $250/week. Some tenants have moved out with friends or their parents because they can no longer afford the rent,” he said.