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What’s Happening in the Southern Highlands Property Market?

Researching the property market here in the beautiful Southern Highlands has been interesting of late. So much talk about the impact of rising interest rates, house prices falling, supply and demand factors and predicting future patterns all make for some intriguing conversation amongst homeowners, and agents, alike. 

Supply & Demand- this is a tricky one. 

We know for certain there are 554  homes listed currently within the Southern Highlands but what you may not realise- if you’re part of the general public rather than an agent yourself- is that many homes are unlisted/off-market or coming to market. So, the stats we gauge online only tell some of the story.

Demand will be highlighted when there are many enquiries and parties inspecting the current open homes. 

The price brackets below show the current publicly listed Southern Highlands open homes stats taken from the first week of Feb 2023:

Up to $1m= 160 homes

$1-2m =238 

$2-3m =82

$3.4m =42

$4-$5m = 17

$5-6m =14

Over $6m = 27

Source: realestate.com.au

We are seeing more properties come onto the market in all categories compared to last week. Now that people have returned from summer holidays and children are recommencing school etc., the market is picking up a little. For how long though, is anyone’s guess.

We are noticing there have been some price corrections in certain pockets- vendor’s hoping to get early 2021 prices and coming down to reality of the current market. It’s a shame to see this occur from the vendor’s perspective, but this is the reality of the housing market we are in. 

We are finding vendors getting keen to sell sooner rather than later to capitalize on the remaining value in the current market before predictions come to the possible fruition of the market dropping. The stats from PropTrack released this week, showed that “Rapidly rising interest rates have impacted housing markets across the country” and “Nationally, we are forecasting prices to fall by a further 7% to 10% by the end of this year.”

You can read the full Market Outlook Report here 

Average property prices

It’s useful to research your suburb here in order to find average property prices. 

If we take a look at Bowral, for instance, you’ll find the average market trends and property prices here

This tells us that 3- and 4-bedroom homes are in greater demand than 5-bedroom homes as Days on Market (DOM) are less. As mentioned above, there are a plethora of homes (238 to be exact) in the $1-2m price bracket but they are moving faster than the 82 homes that are in the price bracket of $2-3m. 

Overall, it’s good to see more seller activity and it will be interesting to see how buyers respond to this. I feel there is more bargaining power from a buyer’s perspective as more stock comes to market. I also feel that vendors have a good opportunity now to sell for a reasonable price. 

Who knows what’s ahead this year and if interest rates rise, some buyers will continue to sit on their hands with the potential of mortgagee sales starting to pop up.

Stay tuned for more insights to come. 

PS If you’re looking to buy or sell in the Southern Highlands, here at Earth Property Buyers Agents, we are happy to help. Just reach out to us and let us know what challenges and needs you have, and we’ll do our best to provide you with an individualized and valuable path forward. We look forward to hearing from you.

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