Blogs

Thinking of selling or buying property? Spring is believed to be the peak of the real estate buying and selling season, but in 2021 does that still stand?

Property investors once looked to inner-city suburbs for good returns, but the latest data from realestate.com.au reveals many of Melbourne’s top performing investor suburbs are further afield.  Of the top 50 investor suburbs, just six fall within 20km of the CBD. They are: the Brunswick and Lalor house markets and the Malvern East, Clayton, Box Hill and St Albans unit markets.

ANZ is the latest major bank to revise up its forecasts for house price growth in 2021, predicting prices in Melbourne will rise by 20 per cent this year and around 7 per cent in 2022. That places the city in line with the growth figure forecast for combined capital cities, but behind Sydney’s 23 per cent forecast.

With spring just around the corner, those thinking of putting their house on the market in the traditional peak selling season should be knee deep in preparing the home for sale.  But in a tight market, where properties are being sold within days, is it worth still spending the money on styling your property?

Our homes, once our castles, have been turned into fortresses in a turn of events no one saw coming. For thousands of Australians home has become their office, their school, their gym, their entertainment centre and their refuge. But while the changes have been stressful, we have discovered a new sense of community.

Like most Australian markets, house prices in Melbourne are still growing, but will likely taper toward the end of the year according to data firm CoreLogic.

Melbourne rent values are bouncing back from pandemic lows, in a promising sign for investors and landlords.  Rent values in the Victorian capital have fallen 1.4 per cent over the past 12 months to the end of June, according to CoreLogic. However they lifted 0.4 per cent in June and 0.6 per cent over the last quarter in an indication the worst may be behind us.

The remarkable resilience of Victorian property and a record price gap between houses and units has become two of the main features of our real estate market during the pandemic.  Despite the lockdowns which have brought the economy and real estate industry to a standstill as the state moves to fight the spread of Covid-19, the market continues to witness strong price growth.

Major bank NAB has upgraded its house price growth expectations for the Melbourne market, predicting a 17.6 per cent rise in 2021. The revised outlook, released Monday, cited low interest rates and a "stronger than expected" recovery in the labour market as key reasons for the uplift.