Melbourne home prices are tipped to surge following the lifting of a seven-week ban on home inspections over the weekend, The Australian Financial Review reports.
Many restrictions still remain including how only one set of buyers are allowed at properties at any time. Also, vendors cannot be on site while agents must remain outside, leaving buyers alone in the property, raising some security concerns.
But real estate agent, Luke Banitsiotis, from Woodards in Blackburn said a surge in house prices is still expected due to pent-up buyer demand.
“For those clients who had pre-committed but needed to sell something to fund the purchase, it definitely created some challenges for them. If there was inflexibility in terms of settlement dates they were faced with some nervous times,” Mr Banitsiotis said.
“On the positive side, we had a really good run with people who were willing to purchase off virtual inspections for stock that was already there, which is probably a sign of demand.”
He said stock levels were “definitely down” but the pipeline was looking good.
“It’s looking likely that the stock that we do have is still not going to meet demand. It feels like there’s plenty of people waiting in the wings,” he said.
“The moment we opened inspections up yesterday for Saturday on some properties there were 15 people registered within the first two hours.”
Some Melbourne agents have reported that October is set to be the biggest auction month ever due to the August and September property backlog.
Source: Australian Financial Review.
