2008/2009

Last year was truly tumultuous for the real estate industry.

The weekly and sometimes daily news of increasing world wide financial fall out, has seen buyers hold back. Consequently, the number of transactions has been down significantly. The current offset to something of a stalled market has been the progressive lowering of the OCR. The flow on to lower retail mortgage rates alongside softer achieved prices is having an affect on affordability.

Latest reports indicate that as at today affordability is better than it has been for 5 years.

Right now it feels as though the market may be transitioning as buyers re-enter the market. These include investors and those assessing the cost of rental versus borrowing. Certainly for us, we are currently fielding more interest and offers than we have been for some time and our expectation is for this to continue to build all year, as buyers become more confident.

While activity may increase, we believe it may take some time before we see the demand required to fuel increased achieved sale prices.