After a pretty tough year for agents and home sellers last year, something quite strange has happened so far in 2023; the sky has not fallen in. Sure, it’s not the pandemic boom times, but it’s not exactly the bloodbath we were all led to believe in the media.
We always like to keep a close eye on what happens at our first Saturday open home of any newly marketed property. It’s always the most attended inspection. Back in 2020-2021, it wouldn’t be unusual to see 30-50 groups of buyers turn up to this inspection. Six months ago, this dropped to around five. Some unlucky sellers got zero.
In March 2023, we averaged 13. And in a stack of cases, we had more than 25. These sorts of numbers are starting to move back to ‘normal’ territory.
As we have been reporting for some time, there has been a lack of stock coming on the market. The way I like to think of it, there is still a smaller buyer pool than two years ago. But the pool of properties available to them is also much smaller. That lack of stock has meant buyers still had to compete, especially when most of that shortage is in good quality homes.
Where prices move from here really depends on the number of sellers that come to market. If there is a sudden flood of new listings, forget everything I have said so far and brace for further (but most likely, gentler) declines.
These recent changes have seen the median house price in the Newcastle LGA over the last three months move to $857,500. This represents a slight increase from our last report in February, though it is still a fall of -3.1% compared to the same period a year earlier.
When looking at the various postcodes across Newcastle, the biggest falls have been in the 2291 postcode (Merewether, Merewether Heights and The Junction), with the median house price falling by -13.6%.
Further out in the 2287 postcode (home to Wallsend, Maryland, Fletcher and a few other suburbs, the median house price may be one of the lowest in Newcastle, but the median price has hardly changed in 12 months.