16 December 2011
MELBOURNE:- The number of properties offered for sale and unsold in Melbourne continues to grow.
In the last 30 days ‘Stale Stock’ has risen 4.2 % to 94,467, after 6.2% growth last month. This follows a 20.4 per cent rise in September and an 18 per cent rise in August.
“Supply and demand are disconnected,” Prosper Australia Campaign Manager David Collyer said today. “This is very sad news for sellers hoping to exit at last year’s prices.
Prosper tracks Melbourne’s ‘Stale Stock’ figures – property on the market for more than sixty days and unsold – as a quick indicator of change to the supply and demand equation and as a price change predictor. The raw data is from SQM Research.
“Buyers who previously leap into purchasing the moment their sums added up are holding back. Why should they buy? Property prices are falling. Anyone who can read knows about the devastation in the US housing bubble burst.
“Real estate vendors are price takers, not price makers. This is true in all markets at all times. Choosing to hold out for a better offer – the decision taken in every one of the 94,467 cases above – will prove to be a bad call.
“At say $450,000 per house, there is now $43.4 billion tied up in depreciating assets.
In the widest Melbourne and environs, the 94,467 unsold houses are up from 90,659 last month, 85,313 two months ago, 70,856 three months ago and 60,045 four months ago. In eight months ‘Stale Stock’ in Melbourne postcodes 3000-3207 has exploded from 19,800 properties to 61,514.
Notable hotspots include postcode 3021 St Albans (1163 stale properties), 3023 Caroline Springs (1399), 3024 Wyndham Vale (1454), 3029 Tarneit/Truganina/ Hoppers Crossing (3641), 3030 Point Cook/Werribee (4838), 3037 Sydenham (1151), 3064 Roxburgh Park/Craigieburn (2129), 3076 Epping (1408), 3175 Dandenong (1255), 3199 Frankston South (1421), 3337 Melton (2696), 3338 Melton West (1594), 3754 Doreen/Mernda (3103), 3805 Narre Warren (1243), 3806 Berwick (1148), 3810 Pakenham (2796), 3977 Cranbourne (3504), 3004 Southbank (1025) and 3000 Melbourne (1564).
‘Stale Stock’ has risen in every Melbourne postcode without exception.
“The volume and price trends are entirely consistent with Prosper’s prediction land prices will halve in real terms over 5-6 years, of which nearly a year has already passed. Don’t Buy Now!” ENDS
Media comment: David Collyer david.collyer@prosper.org.au
About Prosper: Prosper Australia is a tax reform lobby group and think tank that is now 120 years old. It seeks to move the base of government revenues from taxing individuals and enterprise to capturing the economic rents of the natural endowment, notably through Land Value Tax and Mining Tax.
This just the start….de-leveraging will pick up pace globally and this flow through to reduced economic activity….etc.
This front page article is becoming very stale!