Listings down but not out

There are plenty of buyers but compared to previous years there are limited properties advertised for sale with some agents predicting the rush may not happen until November.

Elders real estate manager for NSW Denis McGrath, Dubbo, said while in the past couple of weeks there has been interest from buyers, property listings were “very quiet”.

“The quality listings are just not there,” Mr McGrath said.

Mr McGrath said normally the spring selling season received a good kick start with plenty of property listings starting to appear in August and September.

This year, he said that was likely to be delayed and there probably would not be a big rush of property listings until November.

There had, however, been a good response from prospective buyers, he said, with recent auctions attracting one or two bidders, and sometimes three, which was still a good indication of interest – but much of this had just been on smaller lifestyle properties.

“When you get into the larger properties the buyers are more selective.”

Mr McGrath said areas such as Brewarrina, Lightning Ridge and to the border were doing it tough, while the New England would be somewhat slow, but from Parkes, Forbes, and down through the State’s south to Wagga Wagga, activity was looking up given good crops and better seasonal conditions.

Ray White Rural Narrabri and Namoi Valley principal Rob Southwell said cotton irrigation listings in particular had been thin because there wasn’t a lot of water and “water makes the cash flow”.

“Years ago, there used to be a lot of emotion involved in buying a signature property – now it is an accounting decision; people are putting the microscope on a property and are looking at its capacity to produce,” Mr Southwell said.

“I wouldn’t be frightened to sell anything at the moment.”

However, in the south, Landmark Harcourts property agent Sally Douglas, Wagga Wagga, said there was a fair deal of confidence in the property market at the start of spring, but much of that was due to the fact that “we are in a pretty good patch of the State”.

“I’ve got spring listings hitting the market and there has been some good inquiry so far,” she said.

“We got a great break early this year, and while we were low for rain near Wagga in July the country is looking good, but it does need more rain to keep it going.”

A changing trend this year, she said, was that her listings were not as large as those last year.

In 2013 she had been marketing properties of about 1200ha (about 3000ac), while this year she had more properties in the 260ha (about 650ac) to 400ha (about 1000ac) vicinity – but this was a good thing from a buyer’s point of view.

Yet further west, Rawlinson and Brown property agent Lawry Owers, Griffith, said confidence was more subdued, with farmers desperately hoping for rain.

“Rain is the key to it in our area,” he said.

Mr Owers said there were a few other factors at play in the property confidence situation as well, with water allocations among them.

“We are fast approaching our traditioal summer sowing time for cotton, rice and corn in the first week of October, and farmers are not able to budget on what are they are able to plant because they don’t know what their water allocation is going to be.”

Mr Owers said with a lot of mixed farming properties in the area, many farmers would be right into cereal crop harvesting in November, which meant there would not likely be a huge amount of properties listed for sale in the district until February or early autumn next year.

There had, however, been some good signs of interest.

“Recently we were starting to see a bit of buyer activity coming from the north, as this region is regarded as a secure cotton growing area.”