Don’t dump and run on property in this market

The Property landscape in Australia has changed over the last twelve to twenty four months, in fact it has changed forever following the past ten years. The growth the market has experienced during the past decade has been none short of generational change. Those that owned property at the beginning of the decade, no matter where it was to some extent, have experienced strong growth. It would seem that wealth from property was a given, you just had to buy it and wait, unfortunately some found out the hard way that this is far from true. Some are still yet to find out because generally you only find how good your investment is until after you have sold it.

There are certainly times to SELL and times to BUY and times to HOLD in property cycles, and now is one of those times to HOLD! Unless property owners really need to sell, now is the time to ride out any downturn in demand and inevitable drop away in pricing. The market turning around and significant growth can be a matter of months or a few years, but also holding costs need to be weighed up to establish if it is worthwhile holding, working on a time frame, or selling now.

For those buyers that are 'cashed up' there are certainly some opportunistic buys. Some vendors have been unrealistic with pricing and subsequently their properties have failed to sell. We often see these types of property end up selling well below what they could have originally achieved if the vendor had been a little more realistic in the beginning. As always in markets like this, there will be winners, losers and those that did not act!

Scott McGeever 19-Dec-10

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