Torquay market in patient times

THE housing market in Torquay is “patient” at the moment with times tough for buyers and renters alike, according to McCartney Real Estate director Tim Carson.

Mr Carson was one of two speakers at the CommBank Torquay Business Breakfast, hosted by the bank at The Sands Torquay on Wednesday last week.

About 100 people heard insights about the Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s macro sales desk strategy from CBA head of macro strategy Adam Donaldson, as well as Mr Carson’s snapshot of the local property market.

Mr Carson said the town’s properties could generally be split into three categories: old Torquay and Jan Juc, lifestyle properties, and the newer suburbs in Torquay North.

He said demand over the height of the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the price of all Torquay properties up by between $400,000 and $500,000 “as a rule of thumb”, with lifestyle properties rising by closer to $500,000 to $700,000.

 

“We’ve seen that Old Torquay’s kept that pretty well – probably the thing that has maybe come off a little bit is the older-type properties.”

The median house price in Torquay is sitting just above $1.250 million, with 216 homes sold so far this year.

Torquay properties spend an average time of 60 days on market and there were (as of Wednesday last week) 172 properties for sale, which Mr Carson said was about three times higher than 12 months ago.

“When you go and do an open for inspection, you see the same people, you ring them up every week and it’s ‘Oh, I’m just looking at the moment’ but all they’re doing is trying to fish out a bargain,” he said.

“Whereas back in the COVID times, we were having 15 people go through, multiple offers… as I’ve said to a lot of people, your grandma could have sold real estate during COVID, it was really just maintaining it and making sure you followed everything up. As soon as a property would go on, you would get multiple offers.”

Land sales have also slowed, with buyers more keen to buy an established house at less overall cost.

Mr Carson said rentals have “gone through the roof”, especially in the past two to three months during the interest rate rises.

“I think in August there were 85 rentals available; there’s now 38.”

He said the median rental price was $650 per week and was growing rapidly.

“A good four-bedroom home in the estates at the moment, you’ll be paying $730 to $750 a week for them, and we’re having 10 to 15 people apply for every rental.”

Mr Carson said compliance checks in Victoria affected some owners of older houses, who either sold the house or switched it to a holiday rental, which in turn affected the existing tenants.

“Unfortunately, those people who have been in the house paying $450 to $500 a week either have to move to Armstrong Creek or Geelong, or they have to compete against someone else and pay $700 to $750.”

During his speech, Mr Donaldson said new Reserve Bank of Australia governor Michele Bullock was right to describe Australia as experiencing “shock after shock after shock”, but many of these shocks – including terms of trade, monetary, and productivity and jobs – would not be fixed with higher interest rates.