Ninja In A Blazer – 16th March 2023

I’ll keep this email short and sweet with the above video covering a lot of what’s going on this week.

The market is definitely changing.

Some of the houses are selling for the prices they’ve been holding out for, some slightly lower maybe 5%, some significantly lower 25%-30%. However, transaction numbers are picking up again, buyer numbers are up, it looks like we’ll get a pause in interest rate increases and it looks like there may be a decline in rates towards the end of the year after the collapse of two silicon valley banks in the US. Like I said last year, if they over did the rate rises, there would be damages to cause them to quickly drop interest rates again. I personally think they read too much into the Christmas inflation data and should have paused the January rate rise….however many economists are still tipping the rates to go higher.

We aren’t going to see the cliff that many are expecting when fixed interest rates come out of their fixed period. We will see some sales that have to happen.

There was one in Chermside recently that sold at the peak for $2,150,000; which would have seen a $100,000 stamp duty bill. They’ve since re-sold for $1,950,000. Ultimately once you include agent fees, conveyancing, moving costs etc, they’ve probably lost $300,000 in the transaction.

It makes you wonder… Why is stamp duty so high on a $2million property? I mean, the stamping is all digital now, it’s the same system and the same thing that happens regardless of the price of the property, why does it have to be sooo high? It’s not like you’re getting a better service by paying more, or a worse service by paying less.

Surely there’s got to be a better way to calculate the stamp duty?!?!