Sydney’s property market is set to pick up this spring with more new listings to hit the market, but the rise will be subdued compared to previous years amid vendor caution.
Early indications are that vendors are gearing up for the spring selling season, with those in the industry of dressing homes ready for marketing campaigns reporting an increase in business which is keeping them busier than in previous months.
But even as the city’s housing market bottoms out, buyers are set to be competing for a smaller number of new options than in previous years.
While new listings were being added to the market, volumes were low compared to past years, according to Domain research analyst Eliza Owen.
The number of average listings per day rose 13.4 per cent in the week to August 4, compared to the previous week.
“It’s noteworthy that new listings are still very low. We are unlikely to see a significant pick-up in listings until the end of winter and beginning of spring,” Ms Owen said, adding that the ongoing trend was yet to be seen.
Appraisals in NSW also edged up 2.2 per cent in July compared with June, Pricefinder data showed.
Businesses that prepare homes for sale, such as property stylists and interior designers, offer a good barometer for the spring selling season ahead.
Advantage Property Styling managing director Dan Gerber said the past six months were sleepy but there had been a burst of activity immediately after the election.
He has since seen an uptick in business, tracking activity by the amount of homes his company styles.
“We did see a consistent and gradual uplift in the second half of July and August, which has been good. It’s not the kind of frenzy of activity we saw in 2017,” Mr Gerber said, adding that it was too early to predict what would unfold in spring.
“Through autumn and winter earlier this year, we saw a lot of indecisiveness with vendors, a lot of campaigns [were] deferred. Now more [buyers] are locking in with certainty.”
He said his company was styling a greater proportion of larger homes in the past four weeks.
“[It] suggests people are venturing into the market with family homes and the discretionary transaction side of property market is starting to trend up again,” Mr Gerber said.
Even so, cautious vendors and agents were budgeting for longer campaign periods, tipping that homes might take some time to sell, according to Mr Gerber.
“Agents are saying ‘yes, we want to use styling but can we rent for eight weeks rather than six’.”
For Nick Karakatsis, who has just listed his Erskineville four-bedroom terrace through BresicWhitney, professionally styling his investment property was a decision made from the outset to stand out from the rest.
“The key thing is it allows the buyer to feel the space with furniture in place and understand the whole relationship between room size and furniture,” Mr Karakatsis said.
“A bare property doesn’t present very well. It also brings down the price. If you dress up something it stands out a lot better as well.”
Property Styling Corp partner and senior stylist Angie Dennis also noticed a quiet winter and a pick-up in the market ahead of spring, although not to the same extent as last year.
“From my point of view, [it] just pulled down unusually from February until June, it was very quiet,” Ms Dennis said, adding that it had since ramped up in preparation for spring selling season.
“We’ve had a 50 per cent increase in our business in the past four to six weeks,” Ms Dennis said. “Our inquiries had definitely cooled and were well below average based on sales data from this time last year.”
Ms Dennis has been busy styling homes that will be on the market in a few weeks’ time and the competition is stiff.
“I’ve been flat out now, everybody wants to get their house ready. I’ve been helping select carpets and colours to have a late August and mid-September launch.”
Papillon Styling & Renovations project manager Belinda Woolrych said vendors were choosing to prepare their homes to make them stand out in a market very different to that of the boom.
“Traditionally, in a hot market anything sells. But in a market like this where the competition is greater, we are busier than normal.”
article by www.domain.com.au