Burbs Property Sales Update: 4th June

Reasonable news this week, even if it didn't quite match the success of last week:

There were 5 sales in the $500k+ category for the Burbs and Surrounds, as per Courier Mail. There were 2 other sales above 500k that didn't appear in the Recent Sales list that I know of. Of the 7 in total, none were over the $1m mark. As of today there are 634 properties on the market over 500k (last Saturday there was 635). All in all then a reasonable week.

Good news for Brisbane as a whole: there were 6 sales in excess of $1m, equalling the most I've ever seen listed in a single week.

Of note:

17 Clara Street, Corinda: finally sold. This is the original Queenslander that stood on a  block that was subdivided twice. 17 Clara originally came to market with a price tag of over $1m. It sold this week for $600k. The banks finally ran out of patience, it seems.

18 Consort Street, Corinda: this property achieved a maximum bid of $1.2m at last weekend's auction is now on the market at $1.5m. Quite a shocking result for the agent who should have ensured prior to the auction that the 'interested parties' actually had the budgets to reach the reserve. Quite clearly neither of the bidders were even close.

In today's CM Property section there is a headline trumpeting Ray White Toowong's "100% Auction Clearance Rate" at an event at the Toowong Rowing Club on Wednesday evening. Impressive stuff indeed. Further perusal of the article reveals that Ray White Toowong auctioned a massive 3 properties at this event. Hats off to Australia's finest!

Pamela Bennett, the REIQ Chairman, writes in today's paper that buyers would be "hard-pressed to encounter better opportunities than the ones presently available." Sadly, Ms Bennett doesn't answer the one question that's on every buyer's lips at the moment: how do we know we're even close to the bottom yet? Who's to say we don't have another 24 months of falling house prices ahead of us? Perhaps someone can answer that question at the upcoming housing seminar that the REIQ is organising ...