REIV: Ebbs and flows in yearly sales

As the old tourism advertising campaign entreated, “you’ll love every piece of Victoria”.

Well, that might depend on the time of year when one visits a particular place. The volume of visitors to every region increases and decreases according to the seasons. One might expect real estate sales would reflect that. But do they?

Over the past five calendar years, Greater Geelong, Ballarat and Greater Bendigo are the only municipalities in regional Victoria that have averaged more than a thousand house sales per year.

Dividing those sales into 20 quarters, we see that in Geelong, just two of the 20 saw sales hit 30 per cent of the annual. Bendigo had just one quarter that reached the same mark, while Ballarat had none.

We can see a wider variation in the next sales level down, where the annual average house sales have averaged at least 400.

Surf Coast had three quarters where sales were 30 per cent or more of annual. Bass Coast and East Gippsland had two; Latrobe, Macedon Ranges and Wellington had one each, while Mildura, and Baw Baw had none. Only four of these municipalities had a quarter where the share of annual sales fell below 20 per cent of the annual.

In areas regarded as more seasonal, properties have been tightly held. In Alpine, two June quarters and one September quarter over the five years were above the 30 per cent of annual, while none dipped below 20 per cent. In the Mansfield region, where sales have averaged just over 60 per year, there have been seven 30-plus (spread across the year) and three 20-minus quarters (twice in a September and once in a March quarter).

The most stable sales, where the difference across five years was the smallest between the busiest and slowest quarters, occurred in Ballarat and Baw Baw, followed by Mildura, Greater Bendigo and Hepburn.

In these and some other areas, it seems that supply drives sales more than the seasons do. By contrast, ebbs and flows were more apparent in those places where sales were minimal.

Your local REIV agents are well placed to provide specialised advice on local regions and towns.