25 January 2023
In this edition of Market Minutes, James Haywood and Matt Nicastri discuss the strong start to 2023, and what it means for the Northern Beaches property market this year.
Transcription:
James Haywood:
Hi, I’m James Haywood here with Matt Nicastri, and welcome to the first Market Minutes of 2023. So Matt, we’re back. We’ve had two open home weekends.
Matt Nicastri:
Yeah.
James Haywood:
How have you seen numbers come back?
Matt Nicastri:
Yeah, really stark contrast to the back end of last year where we saw buyers really failing to commit to properties. And then I guess in terms of numbers, really important I guess for us to communicate with the market is that numbers are up 40% in the first two weeks of the year. We’ve got enough experience to know that you don’t judge the market on two weekends, but early signs are really positive.
James Haywood:
So it’s feeling very similar to the previous year, isn’t it? Where at the end of the year numbers dropped off and then came back strong in the first quarter.
Matt Nicastri:
Yeah, for sure. And obviously the reasons for that is that stock is obviously quite low at the moment and people really start the year with intention to buy at the beginning of every year. They start with the New Year’s resolution as always, so that’s why we’re seeing increased numbers. A lot of the buyers will turn into genuine buyers I think as the weeks and months go on. A lot of people are right at the beginning of their search, but I think we can take a lot of confidence in the market in knowing that people are starting the year with the intention to buy and that there is underlying demand there.
James Haywood:
So Matt, how are you seeing these numbers actually coming back and the supply for this first quarter?
Matt Nicastri:
Yeah, so in the first couple of weeks we’ve seen a really short supply in property, and that’s obviously driven the numbers, but I think in speaking of colleagues and competing agents, looks like there is going to be a little bit more property on. But what’s really interesting is that in 2021 versus 2022, the Northern beaches stock levels had declined 36%.
James Haywood:
That’s interesting, isn’t it? And that’s what we’ve seen is that often in our market, the northern beaches, that the contraction in supply is what protects our prices and why we haven’t got into that continual fall.
Matt Nicastri:
That’s right. Yeah, absolutely. So James, there’s a lot of uncertainty in the market at the moment. How do you see it?
James Haywood:
Yeah, it’s interesting as you read everything in the media about what’s going to happen, we generally see there’s three types of markets. There’s an incline, bit of a decline, and then there’s a stabilized market. And I think clearly the numbers of what we’ve seen and the way buyers are behaving is that we’re into that stabilized market.
Matt Nicastri:
Yeah, I think we’ve reached a point of parody in terms of what the buyers see in value and where sellers are at the moment. So I think we’re in that stable period as well.
James Haywood:
Obviously as the year comes in, there’ll be more stuff coming on, so it’d be really interesting to see how the market goes.
Matt Nicastri:
Yeah, I think given the current numbers, there’s obviously enough buyers for as many properties as we expect to come on, so we’ll report on that and the next Market Minutes. So we’ll see you then.
James Haywood:
See you next time.
