If prices are softening, why are so many buyers still missing out on the homes they actually want?
I’ve learnt that every market has a story buyers tell themselves.
Right now, the story is a simple one. Prices are falling, auction clearance rates are down, and the headlines say this is the biggest downturn in decades. So buyers assume the leverage is theirs.
And I understand why. The national numbers are real. Cotality has values down 5.2% from the March peak, and Brisbane clearance rates have spent weeks in the low 20s.
But I think buyers are overlooking something fundamental.
A sale needs a seller first.
Across our Maroochydore and Buderim offices, 22% of sellers who’ve come to market since 1 July have withdrawn. More than one in five.
They didn’t sell for less. They simply stopped.
Why? Because most of them can. After five years of record growth, many Sunshine Coast owners are sitting on significant equity, and they aren’t carrying the kind of debt that forces a sale. Nationally, Cotality found more than 95% of resales were made at a profit. The Reserve Bank’s own review puts fewer than 1% of borrowers in negative equity.
Add rents that are still climbing, and an owner who doesn’t get their price has a perfectly good option: lease it, hold it, and wait.
This isn’t a market of forced sellers. It’s a market of patient ones.
Last weekend I auctioned 72 Deloraine Drive, Buderim. It’s the clearest example I’ve seen of this playing out.
Nine genuine buyers attended, each with a view to buying either under the hammer or afterwards on terms. Five registered to bid.
The opening bid was $1.3 million. From there, only three people actually bid.
The home sold for $1,625,000, with two bidders going all the way.
So what happened to the other seven?
None of them were outbid at the end. Most never raised a hand. They’d talked themselves out of it before the first bid was placed, convinced the market would hand them a better deal, on this home or the next one.
It didn’t. And the next one won’t necessarily be the one they love.
Here’s the trap. A buyer misses the home that ticks every box, then settles weeks later for one that ticks fewer, because it felt like better value.
Six months on, the savings are forgotten. The compromise is lived with every day.
We’re not immune to getting the market wrong ourselves, and I wouldn’t pretend otherwise. But what we see at the Auctions each week is consistent. Good homes, well presented and well priced, still attract competition. The discount buyers are waiting for tends to show up on the homes nobody was fighting over in the first place.
Get your finance confirmed at today’s rates, and test it against another rise. Then decide what the right home is worth to you, not what the headlines say it should cost.
If it’s the one, be prepared to act on the day.
Are you waiting for the market to come to you, or for the home you actually want?
Because the best homes don’t wait for perfect conditions. They just sell.
If most homes sell in the first five weeks, what does it cost the sellers who wait? The question I’m asked most isn’t about price. It’s “how long will this take?” It’s a fair question, and one I think our industry often answers with instinct rather than evidence. So we looked at our own numbers: … […]
We’re spending more time and money than ever making sure people notice us. But are we putting the same effort into what happens when they do? After more than 20 years in real estate, I’ve watched our industry evolve enormously. Our technology is better, our marketing is more sophisticated and our ability to generate enquiries … […]