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$$$$, Auction, Boom, Darwin, First Homebuyers, Home, House Price, Median, Northern Territory, NT News, Property, Raine & Horne, Real Estate
The 2016 Darwin Residential Sales Market is presenting as one of the toughest if not the toughest market in which I have been involved over the last 28 years in Real estate.
Now that is really saying something as I started my career selling homes in the ‘recession we had to have’.
The lowest sales No’s on record in Darwin since the REINT started keeping statistics in 1999.
But I am not here to belabor the point as to how tough it is for the poor old Real Estate Agent. Because unless you are a Real estate Agent who would actually care?
What I am here to talk about is something we are seeing that is making the job a little more exciting as we are at least getting some traffic through the door and having the opportunity to talk to someone rather than just putting out and collecting Home Open signs 8 times a Saturday.
In the NT the Auction system is a much maligned and avoided tool. We hear all the excuses from ‘Auctions are Expensive’ to ‘I’d never buy at an Auction’ however I can tell you that they are currently getting more people through the door.
Over the last 2 years I have tracked the No of attendees at our Home Opens and the average has diminished over this time from 3/open to where it currently sits at 0.7/open.
The last 5 auctions we have conducted had an average of 7 attendees per Home Open and there were 38 people in attendance at the Auction just 2 weeks ago. 4 out of 5 properties have sold so far in the Auction Program (coincidentally only 1 Under Hammer) and we are dealing with buyers on the other.
Now that is not to say that we recommend Auctioning everything however it certainly makes a strong statement in a market where the average Days on Market is in excess of 120 days and approximately 8% of properties are selling of those listed for sale in any month! Meanwhile we have an 80% strike rate on Auctions…..Just Saying!
There is one thing that I do know for sure and that is that ‘You can’t sell a home if you do not have a buyer’ and the traffic of potential buyers certainly increases during our Auction campaigns…..it stands to reason that you would have an increased chance of sale in a Tough Market?