Signs point to housing slowdown

The Australian 12:00am September 23, 2017

Elizabeth Redman

Anxious vendors are turning to Gumtree and social media as well as traditional listings websites in the hope of selling their homes as the housing market softens.

Off-the-plan resale apartments and suburban houses are being listed with labels of “urgent” and “huge discount”, particularly in Melbourne and Brisbane where concerns have been raised over the volume of apartment supply.

The listings come amid a regulatory clampdown on investor lending aimed at cooling housing prices while the Reserve Bank ­recently again singled out the Brisbane apartment market as cranes dot the skyline.

There is some evidence the clamps are working, with slowing price growth and a slip in auction clearance rates, but results are mixed and prices still edging higher on average.

Dozens of inner-city and outer-suburban apartments in Melbourne have been listed on Gumtree this month, including “urgent” resales for off-the-plan homes at original contract prices from two years ago or even units with a “huge discount”.

Brisbane listings on the website include a Bowen Hills apartment “lower than original contract price” and “totally negotiable” along with house and land packages.

Even in the heated Sydney market, a “charming” Bankstown two-bedroom “needs to be sold ASAP”.

On Facebook Marketplace, a range of properties are for sale, including Melbourne townhouses and apartments — one with a premium furniture package and whitegoods thrown in — and house and land packages in Brisbane’s outer north.

In the hopes of avoiding hefty agent commissions while still ­attracting buyers, Melbourne-based accounting and finance graduate Wenhai Zhang has listed an apartment for off-the-plan resale on Gumtree.

He is helping to find a buyer for his friend who moved from China to study in Australia and bought the home, then found it difficult to get finance after ­restrictions on lending to offshore buyers were introduced.

Other Chinese buyers are in a similar position and trying to sell their apartments, he told The Weekend Australian.

“I did contact some Chinese agents, so they have a lot of apartments off the plan on their hands,” said the 23-year-old, who is also from China and has been in Australia for five years.

BIS Oxford Economics senior manager for residential property Angie Zigomanis said there was a chance that apartment resales were rising at a faster rate than completions.

“The challenge for people who have recently bought off the plan is whether they can get the same price back when they onsell it in a market where there are a lot of competing products,” he said.

Meanwhile, WBP Group executive chairman Greville Pabst had noticed a gradual rise in the proportion of properties selling before auction.

He said the rise was an “early indicator of nervousness”.

“It demonstrates that confidence is waning in the marketplace,” Mr Pabst said.

Prices were still rising in the east coast capitals but at a slower pace.

Propertybuyer managing director Rich Harvey noticed a “gentle cooldown” in Sydney, particularly in the southwest and northwest suburbs, with attendance down at open homes.