Open slather: Perth property market so hot agents ditch price guides
Perth real estate agents are ditching the price guide in favour of open offers as the property market ceiling reaches new and unpredictable heights.
Strategic Property Group managing director Trent Fleskens said in a seller’s market, in which demand far outweighed supply, listing homes with a suggested value risked underselling the property.
As the market tightens, locals on the west-coast can expect to see Sydney-like market conditions.Credit: iStock
“Why prejudice the price when the market is moving so quick?” he said.
“As a seller, I would never advise you to put a price down – the only time you do that is when there are fewer buyers than there are properties, and you’re trying to inspire confidence.”
Even in examples in which homes for sale are advertised with an estimated value, there is no indication of what the property will actually sell for, as in the recent case of a Girrawheen home which sold for $150,000 more than it was listed for – for cash, no less, and after only one home open.
“Even I am being surprised by the prices people are paying,” Fleskens said.
“But it’s a capitalist market – it’s not the sale of fruit and veg, it’s people’s homes and investment properties and assets.
“It’s under their terms, they can sell or not sell, and they have the privilege to use whatever ethical strategy possible to sell their house.”
The current scenario playing out in Perth was nothing new to buyers and sellers in the eastern states, Fleskins said, but would soon become the norm.
He also said in the five years leading up to 2021, Perth buyers had got used to being in control, but as the market tightened, locals on the west coast could expect to see Sydney-like conditions.
“There’s no fundamental reason why our prices couldn’t get to Sydney prices,” he said.
“If you don’t participate, you watch the train go by.”
“Houses here are more expensive to build, we earn more than many of our counterparts over east, and we pay the same interest rates.
“Everyone is waking up and recognising if they don’t jump on the ladder they will continue to fall behind. That’s the reality of a capitalist market.
“If you don’t participate, you watch the train go by.”
Real estate agents are also turning to online auctions as a way of coping with the sheer number of offers coming in for single properties.
The digital method of placing an offer on a home also adds fuel to the house price tyre-fire as it gives interstate and international buyers a simpler way to bid.
While the eastern states market is more accustomed to auctions as a preferred method of sale, the method hasn’t gained traction in WA, partly due to the lack of sunset clauses that give the highest bidder the right to pull out of a purchase due to change of mind.
Without similar clauses, auctions didn’t grow in popularity in WA in the same way.
Until now.
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