We’re six months into the pandemic now and it seems that a lot of the things that have been predicted about Australian property markets haven’t yet come true.
“There are a lot of these very scary premonitions and forecasts out there. We’re hearing from people who predict that the sky is falling in every possible way,” says Sarah Megginson, editor of Your Investment Property and host of YIP Talk.
“when you look at what these predictions are, are they actually based on facts, on what’s happening in the Australian property market?”
Real estate researcher and buyer’s agent Simon Pressley, director of Propertyology, doesn’t believe so.
“I think that’s when the coronavirus first started, that’s where the so-called experts came out in abundance and most of them are highly risk adverse personalities by nature. They were the ones responsible for the property market declines between 20% and 50%, depending upon which one you listen to. That certainly hasn’t unfolded,” Pressley says.
“I’m not saying there isn’t any possibility of some downturns but certainly not widespread. We have six months to process all of these – that’s quite a bit of time. I also say a lot of things that have happened that I didn’t anticipate back in February or March. One thing that still remain rock solid on and that is large parts of Australia are right now producing price growth and on the balance of probability continue to do so.”
That’s right: Pressley says there are plenty of areas around Australia where real estate values are increasing.
“The trouble is when we talk about property markets, it’s really everyone talking about their own views of Sydney and Melbourne. Last time I checked, they are two cities not one country. We’re in a country that’s got eight capital cities and nearly 200 individual towns and cities that are not capital cities.”
Each one of those 200 locations have their own micro-economy, and they’ve got completely different economic conditions.
“The next town or city that has got a completely different cost of housing, different volumes of housing supply, different levels of confidence, different types of projects going on and this is why every single part of Australia always does different things in any year, whether it’s a Covid year or otherwise,” Pressley says.
Which areas in particular are going well? Pressley dives into it in the latest episode of YIP Talk, Your Investment Property’s podcast – listen now!
