Anthony Albanese snared in inner west real estate crunch
The PM has been dealt a heavy real estate blow, and it all comes down to the decision he made about his controversial investment property.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has been snared in an inner west real estate crunch that may explain why he has had to slash about $150,000 off the price of an investment property up for sale.
The three-bedroom home in Dulwich Hill was first listed in August with a price guide of about $1.9m.
The auction scheduled for October was later called off and the price guide for the three-bedroom home dropped to $1.85m. Last week, the price dropped to $1.75m.
Mr Albanese’s investment, which he snapped up in 2015 for $1,175m, remains up for sale after the two price drops.
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The Prime Minister is selling the home amid settlement of a luxury Copacabana house he bought in September with partner Jodie Hayson for $4.3m. That home is now being offered for rent at $1,900 a week.
But new figures indicate the Labor leader may have inadvertently timed the sale of his Dulwich Hill property poorly, listing it just as the inner west market took a turn for the worse.
It’s now one of the weakest property markets in the country outside of Victoria, with home prices falling by an average of 1.2 per cent in the three months to November, according to PropTrack.
Such a drop, measured against median prices in many areas (houses in much of the region cost over $2.5m) slashed tens of thousands off real estate values.
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It was also a sharp turn from earlier this year when prices in the inner west were rising sharply.
And there could be more falls on the way, with modelling by research SQM Research indicating prices across Sydney could drop by 1-5 per cent next year due to affordability constraints and delays in interest rate cuts.
Changing fortunes for inner west sellers have followed a considerable increase in the volume of housing available for sale – most of which has been other landlord owned properties.
“The market has turned on a dime,” said auctioneer Chris Scerri, who has called sales across much of the inner west this spring.
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“Buyers have become a lot more cautious because of moves from the Reserve Bank … the market has come back a lot in the inner west. It’s unusual for that (area).”
Local agents told The Daily Telegraph many of the vendors who listed over recent months published guides based on the sale from earlier this year when the market was a lot stronger.
And this meant it was common for new properties to hit the market with price expectations a lot higher than the buyer market was willing to pay.
Adrian William director Adrian Tsavalas, commenting on the market generally, said most properties attracted four to five strong buyers earlier this year but this whittled down to just one, or sometimes zero, interest for properties listed over the spring.
Mr Tsavalas said buyers were reluctant to move on inner west listings unless they “saw value”.
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“Listings increased but there wasn’t the same increase in buyers so buyers were really spoiled for choice,” Mr Tsavalas said.
He said it was normal in the current sale climate across the region for vendors to have to adjust their initial price expectations downward on account of softer demand.
There was a silver lining for vendors like Mr Albanese, he added. “Stock is beginning to dry up again and there are still a few buyers trying to get something before (Christmas).”
Originally published as Anthony Albanese snared in inner west real estate crunch