By Alan Lander
The Noosa property market has entered a perfect storm and is now operating in such frantic conditions industry observers are saying they have never seen anything like it.
It’s so overheated that some sellers are buying caravans and blocks of land as there’s no alternative property available, and buyers door-knocking homeowners asking if they want to sell.
By the Rules Noosa Junction conveyancing franchise owner Verelle Southgate described the scenario as “an absolutely absurd cycle“.
Ms Southgate has bought and sold property for more than 20 years and has worked within By the Rules for the past six years. She also owns a franchise in Cairns.
She watched the Noosa market abruptly stop after Covid-19 broke out in Australia in March last year, then re-start and gather pace to record levels, to the point that there is now virtually nothing left to buy – at least for mere mortals, anyway.
“April saw a complete stop,” Ms Southgate said.
“Then in May it was like a door opened. All of a sudden everyone was buying and selling – and it really hasn’t stopped since,” she said.
At first, many buyers were realising you didn’t have to be “sitting in an office as long as you’ve got the IT set up”, instead working from home.
But then, the phone started ringing from overseas.
“We talked to a lot of Australian citizens working overseas for a long time, who were just saying ‘no’ to staying where they were,” Ms Southgate said.
Prices rose, and stock began to diminish.
“Agents have now got pages and pages of buyers waiting, but at the same time, the market was putting a lot of people off because Queensland was becoming over-priced,” she said.
“But for a local seller buying locally, it was the same market: selling high, buying high.”
A lot of these locals were ensuring their contracts included the clause “subject to sale” (of their property) – a wise move, she said.
Then things got more complex.
The banks, many heavily reliant upon overseas-based staff, were now having trouble keeping up with financing demand – and a Covid lockdown in the Philippines cut active staff numbers brutally.
“Some sellers were not prepared to wait for buyers seeking finance, as we do have a lot of cash buyers, especially around here. There are a lot of wealthy people here,” Ms Southgate said.
“We have seen a huge number of properties selling site-unseen; buyers just watch the video the agents make.
“We’re talking $3-4 million properties selling site-unseen. It’s just amazing.”
Ms Southgate said some would-be buyers were walking the streets, finding homes they liked, then contacting local agents to approach the owners asking if they want to sell.
“Some buyers have been door-knocking themselves,” she said.
The next aspect of that perfect storm build-up was the drying-up of the rental market.
“Now we have sellers who don’t want to sell because they’ve got nothing to buy and they can’t rent,” Ms Southgate said.
“I’ve seen a lot of clients who have sold then actually bought caravans – and if they can, a block of land to build on.
“(Now) new caravans have run out of stock – so there’s now a shortage of caravans and a lot of people are now waiting eight months to get one.”
Then the holiday season approached, meaning fewer staff on hand to administer buying and selling.
“People can’t get their finance approvals done in time,” Ms Southgate said.
“Normally finance would be 21 days, now it’s pushing out to 30 or longer, affecting our settlements.
“Even by the end of November banks were starting to say ‘we’re not taking any more settlement bookings before Christmas’. When we heard that we started to make sure we had our settlements booked for the month.
“Christmas to New Year is usually quiet – but we were flat chat. The phone was just going mad.
“It has been an absolutely absurd cycle. We’ve never seen this before,” she said.
Post- the holiday season, nothing has changed; even now the banks are still well behind on financing and key people such as Ms Southgate are putting in 15-hour days, seven days a week just to keep up.
As for the future outlook, Ms Southgate is positive.
I think we’ll remain very strong for at least a couple of years,” she said.
“And it’s going to get busier. There may be some doom and gloom later, with markets crashing in other states but it will not happen here.”
