Early offers often the best: Ray White
More than half of sellers who had signed a contract of sale this year had already rejected a higher offer, new data released by Ray White Group has revealed.
“To us, this is an incredible statistic,” said Brian White, joint chairman of Ray White Group, in his monthly White Paper report.
Mr White said the results, which were based on an internal company straw poll, suggested sellers were setting high price expectations based on years of “justified confidence in the underlying value of their assets.”
“It’s only natural to express disappointment at earlier offers and to ignore them,” he said. “It is clearly painful when that rejection leads to even further disappointment later on.”
Mr White said his company was seeing evidence of a more positive market. He pointed to the company’s “high profile” Broadbeach office making four sales in July - each under $200,000 - for properties that hadn’t realised that amount for more than a decade.
He added that recent talk of interest rate cuts, followed by St George’s decision to lower fixed interest rates, fuelled an immediate and dramatic uptick in buyer interest.
“The uplift in open for inspection numbers, following on these two actions, was dramatic,” he said. “So much so, that our three office Aspley group, in the northern suburbs of Brisbane, reported an all-time record - and this in a market (Brisbane) widely proclaimed to be in dire straits.”