Has the Real Estate Bubble Burst?
Here in Hervey Bay even the casual observer could be forgiven for thinking that the real estate boom was becoming more of a whimper. Houses are clearly staying on the market longer, open houses have been seeing very few visitors regardless of the state of the weather and rental properties are remaining vacant too.
Currently a real estate agent with one of the biggest rental books in town has two properties along The Esplanade for rent and both have been available for several weeks. In other parts of town ‘For Rent’ signs are beginning to appear and that was something you rarely saw as recently as six months ago.
Several months ago one agent told your scribes that the market was very flat and rental properties were not being let for anything like the amount that owners had first been told would be a reasonable rental. Even back then the agent we were told that the number of foreclosures was increasing and even tenants were being affected when their landlord was unable to met the house repayments.
And now things are likely to get worse. The Courier Mail today is running several stories on the real estate market in their business section.
In one story the man behind Aussie Homeloans frankly tells people that it is time to get out of the real estate market. He suggests that it is far better to try and sell now than to wait because in the months to come the price of real estate will only decrease.
He also suggests that it will only take a significant global event for prices on beach front real estate to fall by as much as 25%.
In another story several major Queensland real estate principals talk frankly about the collapsing housing market in south east Queensland as more and more work comes to them from receivers.
Unfortunately it’s not something that anyone seems even vaguely optimistic about just at the moment.
November 15th, 2005 at 4:04 am
[…] Back on November 5 the Gossip reported that even the head of Aussie Homeloans was frankly telling people that the boom in the real estate market was over and prices were on the way down (You can read that story here) so eventually home prices will come back into a range that first home buyers will feel they can afford but that isn’t going to happen for a while. […]