Sales of dwellings numbers nosedive, prices down slightly

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By ERWIN CHLANDA
 
“This is the highest number of vacancies that we can recall,” says a fact sheet issued by the local franchise of L J Hooker.
 
The sheet includes an image of manager Doug Fraser who has been in the real estate business here for nearly four decades.
 
The announcement of more than “200 residential properties throughout Alice Springs advertised as being vacant” coincides with the construction of, or planning for, several developments which are in various stages (approximate numbers of dwellings): Old bowling club (70), former drive-in (70), Kilgariff (pictured; the first two stages – 80) and the eight story Melanka (170).
 
The “autumn 2015” sheet in the March quarter house sales have dropped from 128 to 79 and unit sales from 59 to 38, says the sheet.
 
Median house prices fell from $470,000 to $445,000 and median unit prices from $345,000 to $325,000.
 
Exceptions were media house prices increasing 7.1% in the Eastside to $527,500 and 6.3% in Larapinta to $408,250.
 
In the “upper price bracket” a Hillside Gardens home went for just over $1m and a rural property in Ilparpa Road for $1.08m.
 
The sheet says L J Hooker were “responsible for 38.5% of all sales volume for the quarter”.
 
 

5 COMMENTS

  1. We all know house prices have fallen but council valuations have not. If we do not get industry and law prices will drop further. As I have said in the past, the blocks at Kilgariff are not good value.

  2. This should really come as no surprise to anyone. When the government announced the changes to the First Home Owners Grant approximately 12 months ago, no-one seemed to bat an eyelid.
    Real estate agents made hay while the sun shone with the flurry of sales leading up to January 1, 2015, with barely a thought for what might happen when the changes were put in place.
    Surprise, surprise the market has fallen away in houses and units now that first home buyers can no longer take advantage of the $25,000 grant.
    Perhaps the real estate fraternity should have lobbied the Government last year to consider the wisdom of these changes before they came into being.
    I’m sure the government thought this manipulation of the FHOG would entice people to consider Kilgariff, but sadly this is a bit of a white elephant and seems like it will never take off.
    In some ways the market here needed a correction as prices and rents were (and still are) ridiculous, but try telling that to people who own properties that have dropped in value by up to 10% in the last 12 to 18 months.

  3. Hopefully with more dwellings coming into the market it will keep prices down for families to be encouraged to stay in The Centre.

  4. Great to see market forces at work. Finally the correction that needed to happen is happening.
    The market has been in a bubble for the last five years and is overvalued by as much as 15 to 20%. That’s $70,000+ on a 400,000 home – so relative to the article there’s still a way to fall yet.
    However you look at it, a reduction in property values is very much needed in the Alice. We must allow the market to correct itself now or forever be operating in a false economy propped up by government hand-outs.

  5. As of today we have 200 empty dwellings. This month prices have dropped about 4% and if you have to spend millions on developing the land, you would have to ask if this ground was suitable to build on.

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