04 MAY EDITION
MORE HOMEOWNERS ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF STRONG SELLING CONDITIONS
SUMMARY
• New listings now well above long-term average
• Some buyer metrics softened in April
Are there any signs of the market activity starting to soften ? While it ’ s dangerous to generalise across markets , we ’ ve seen a slight change in buyer activity . Our metrics for home loan pre-approvals , open home attendees , and active auction bidders have all fallen from the incredible highs of February and March . And when we look at the ratio of the number of new listings to the number of sales per month , we dropped from 92 per cent to 80 per cent . There was also a 30 per cent fall in open home attendance in April from March , to 101,000 people . It remains our duty to understand each and every buyer ’ s dreams and remain engaged with them to help them achieve their ambitions . It needs to be remembered that all of our metrics remain very strong on a historical basis and when we consider that the expectations of our sellers have risen during this time , these results show a market with continued momentum .
In April we helped almost 15,000 people with their property ambitions and we conducted 23,000 property appraisals . Our final trading figures came in at $ 6.88 billion for April 2021 across Australia and New Zealand combined . Australia alone produced $ 4.9 billion in sales and once again all markets lifted strongly again with no areas of weakness or subdued activity . New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory was the strongest market in the group last month with $ 1.88 billion in unconditional sales and , up a whopping 160 per cent year on year - which reflects the depths of the pandemic in 2020 . Our April results were very strong compared to prior years , and in fact our second best month ever , despite it being a short month and it included the Easter and Anzac Day breaks . However it was 20 per cent weaker than our March results . Only a year ago we wrote $ 2.54 billion in sales in April .
New listings added to the market are now well above long-term average but strong demand is keeping overall advertised stock levels low . The number of fresh listings added to the housing market has shown a substantial lift relative to the past two years . We added 14 per cent of the 40,000 new residential property listings to the market nationally over the four weeks in April . Some 8,213 new listing authorities were signed by a Ray White member in April across Australia and New Zealand , a rise of 11 per cent on the same month in 2019 . The rise in new listing numbers signals an improvement in
“ It remains our duty to understand each and every buyer ’ s dreams and remain engaged with them to help them achieve their ambitions . ”