I feel false positivity....still, it's positivity.

Well after the last few weeks I have become more and more confused by, what else, but the lovely media reporting an overwhelming number of positive news about property prices. While this in essence is fine and is finally showing a leaning towards positives rather than doom and gloom, there is one eency weency tincy little problem. I am STILL NOT SEEING IT!!!! The Brisbane suburb that I watch (where I have an IP) called Ferny Hills, as well as Ingham in North Queensland, where I live, property is ticking along.....stable, not earth shattering, not idle, just moving.

What I am noticing is the number of stock coming on the market. In Ferny Hills for example, A LOT of houses are coming on the market and are hanging around for a while. They are your typical, highset built in underneath neat 3brm base stock houses. This is unfortunately doing something to our market, it's keeping it low. These are the entry properties, people flogging off stock, it's not the type of properties that are overpriced, the type that usually drive up the suburb profile.

I can conclude two things form this scenario. Either people are seeing this as an opportunity to get out, in fear of the interest rate rises, OR, investors/owners are ready to upgrade and are flogging off stock to open up cash for upgrading. For months, hardly any activity and now, it's all on all of a sudden. I hope this scenario is not being repeated around Australia, as I see it as detrimental to future prices. What I do like though, is how neat these places are inside, it's quality lower end stock.

Ingham, while being a very different market is doing a similar thing. Lots of lower end stock available, quality a bit low but acceptable, but there is also a small section of expensive, overpriced houses that are being listed. This gives me hope.

So yes, while the long term does indeed look rosy for investors/home owners, currently I wonder whether the interest rate rises we are heading towards are keeping prices low. Oh well, back to my ponderings....

Real Estate, Hot Chick, Crap Music...

Selling property is akin to selling chicken. Just dress it up, make it tasty and BAM, it will be sold (KFC has been doing it for years and I believe, so has Ray White).

SO it comes as no surprise that a new apartment block in Melbourne, very originally called "Melburnian", has created a short video to sell these nice new units. Here is the video:

Nice place, hot chick, absolutely atrocious, rip out my eardrums, crappy background music.

But yeah, nice chick....

Twister Wrap, ops, I mean Market Wrap for mid August.

Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen!!! Welcome to Friday Fight Night!!! In the red corner tonight we have The Investors. They have come off a loss in their last round, suffering a defeat by technical knockout from the Global Financial Crisis, but they come prepared and battle-hardened ready for this bout. Property Investors have had a 30-2 win/loss up until recently and the latest loss came as a bit of a surprise. There were good signs early on with dropping interest rates, but they took a beating towards the end of the bout.

In the blue corner, we have The Media, with a current winning streak of 4 straight fights, first with a points decision against Un-affordability, then the second round shock knockout with the Global Financial Crisis. The First Home Buyers Boom was a low key affair easy win and just recently, the Turmoil In The Market was disposed of with a few low punches below the belt.

LET'S GET REEEADY TO RUUUUUMMMMMMBBLLLEEEE!

This bout will definitely be one to watch Ladies and Gentlemen. The media has now picked up on the potential for a lot of recent buyers to end up in financial turmoil with the inevitable raising of the interest rates by the RBA in the next two years or so. This will spook a lot of buyers and investors, it's definitely spooked me a little bit at the moment. However, the big question is, how will this constant barrage of negative doom and gloom news from the media impact on current house prices? Just when confidence was returning, once again here we are, getting cut down, letting us know of potential potholes in the road ahead.

It's funny how the media has reacted. They swing very quickly these days between positive, confidence inspiring news, and the doom and gloom negativity. I suppose it's what sells newspapers and gets website clicks, but the question is, how much truth is there to all of this sensationalised market coverage? I will leave that up to your imagination, but what I will say, is that the property market will be in turmoil for a good while yet and the media will continue to let us know about it, you know, just to keep us on the edge of our seats...

I've been banging on about this for ages....

This blog post is extraordinary!!! Wow, it's like my eyes have just opened. Are you telling me, that I need to buy property to become a property investor??? Whoooar...groundbreaking. :) Well done...Mr Common Sense has prevailed again!!!

I call a pile of shit!

This blog article is a bunch of crap. Not the article itself, but the "professor" making stupid statements. Seriously, "...he puts the increase in median house prices over the past two months was likely due to a reduction in listings creating competition rather than an increase in buyers..."

Ha ha ha...that's like saying, share prices have dropped because there are less shares to buy. Wow, makes me think I could be a professor too....

Something interesting for us all...

If you're like me, you like KFC. But if you're also like me, you will also like numbers. This may be handy for some of you:

Except for that one Sydney suburb for units, this shows how difficult it is to acquire positive geared IPs in inner rings of the major three...

For all of the capitals, click here.

Dammit!!!

The media has found cheap houses. Queenstown, in Tasmania, has long been my dream investment town and now it appears the prices will begin to climb again.

Yes, it is miserably cold, rainy and I would have to assume, very low socio economic, but then so is England. Still, this sleepy little town on the somewhat remote west coast of Tasmania provides some of the cheapest investment properties you can buy in a town. It has all the facilities, it's on the major tourist route for the apple isle, and the town will not disappear, it simply can't with that numerous residential properties there, a new hospital etc. etc. This town is my next target for investing. Maybe, just maybe, I can begin a movement to make this little town a gem.

North Brisbane bargains have me worried...

For a while now, I have kept a keen eye on the North-Western Brisbane corridor. You know the one, starting at The Gap, heading towards Ennogra, up towards Ferny Hills and Ferny Grove, and leading into the mountainous backdrop, what I like to call motorcycle heaven. But I'm not here to talk about bikes (although I would love to blog about my love affair with my Ducati, but that's for another time), I am here, sitting in a slight panic at seeing property such as this.

It;s listed for 399K, has had over 2000 views at realestate.com.au and is still not selling.

This is alarming. On a more personal note, it's very alarming for me. Yes, it has a very steep driveway, it needs updates here and there and it is weatherboard. But by now, in the current market, this should have been snapped up for around $380K-ish, someone should be ripping up the old steps at the front and making it into an excellent rental or PPOR. But no, this is not the case. In fact, there are numerous examples of absolute middle market bargains right now. Houses in this price range are taking a bit of a hit, and it's evident here.

I own a house in this corridor and it's valued more than this one, but the market stalemate means my equity is not growing. My hard earned cash is going to the bank for no other reason than to wait for the price or rental income to go up. So yeah, I'm slightly worried. Some of you may be thinking, just sell with that mentality, but I'm going to hang in there. It's the same feeling when I bought my first house in 2004. Flat prices after the boom in the Logan area. House prices were going nowhere for quite a while. BUT, I stuck it out then and will do it again here. The only way is up...or across. Hopefully up.

A quality agent...

Back a while ago, in 2007 to be exact, I met the epitome of awesomeness that is a real estate agent. His name was Ian Knight and the agency was RE/MAX Toowoomba. Since my interaction with Ian and the team, I have never even come close to experiencing professionalism like I did back all those years ago (well, in fact it was only in 2007, but, hey, it's a lifetime ago). The funny thing was you see, is that the sale didn't even go through, but that brief afternoon has stayed with me for a while. No bullshit, no mucking around, working for the buyer and the seller, true real estateism. Unfortunately, there are very very ugly agents out there, and I don't mean the colour of their lippy, or the shitty power dress or 100 dollar suit. I'm talking about the stupid unnecessary mind games, the "I'll just ring the seller" shit, that is totally pointless and utterly fake. The crappy sales pitches, the bullshitting queens and kings that unfortunately make up the majority of the real estate world.

Just in case you are wondering, I am certain Ian and his team would have no idea I am writing this, as, like I said, it was just a brief afternoon where business was done. So I say congratulations, let's hope there are more Ians out there, giving RE a good name, instead of the shit kicking, bullcrap we so often have to put up with.

Have you had a quality experience with an agent? Let us know...