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PERSONAL/BUSINESS COACH | PROPERTY BUYER | ANALYST

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Friday, 5 October 2018

Gummed up

Nanny state puts sales on go-slow

I must be receiving more than 100 emails per day from real estate agents at the moment (who knew there were so many 'perfect match' properties, hey?).

There's plenty of equity sloshing around in the local blue chipper markets in Brissie, but transaction volumes are punishingly slow as the forensic analysis of household expenses drags on interminably for mortgage applicants.

On the plus side, at least I'm getting lots of slick pdf documents and glossy market reports from thumb-twiddling agents.

They have to do something with their time, I guess, and perhaps the design skills might come in handy for their next roles once they're laid off?

With thank to my local Belle Property agency for these stats:


Source: Belle Property

In truth there's a slight lag on these data meaning they don't yet quite capture all of Q3.

But the actual rolling 12 month number of transactions is 172 - yep, sales are tracking at the slowest level on record.

Agents are talking up the spring selling season, of course. 

Not that any of this has put any real downward pressure on prices, it's just made it harder for people to buy a home as far as I can tell. 


In fact, I don't see what such intense scrutiny of household expenses is achieving at all, except mountains of paperwork.

After all, a borrower can change their spending habits literally the day after settlement if they want or need to.