PHOTO: Selling a house in Melbourne has been incredibly difficult the past seven weeks during lockdown while private inspections have been banned. Photo: Peter Rae
Property buyers in Melbourne can expect more bargains than anyone else in Australia, with more than one in 10 home owners offering a discount on the sales price – a number nearly 10 per cent up on this time last year.
New Domain figures reveal that 12.7 per cent of vendors in November gave buyers a markdown on the advertised price tag, compared to just 3.7 per cent doing that in November 2019.
But then the discounts themselves aren’t proving to be so big-hearted, at an average of four per cent, only slightly more generous than last year’s 3.8 per cent off. But it was the only capital city where more money was knocked off this year than last.
“Melbourne was much more broadly impacted by COVID-19,” said property market commentator Anna Porter, the founder of Suburbanite. “There’s been far more fall-out for local business and employment than the other capital cities have seen, so more people are feeling the pinch.
“Some of those may be needing to sell, and there’s nothing that secures a sale quicker than a price adjustment. Generally, around the rest of Australia, the property market is looking pretty strong and has been propped up by the government, and people have more confidence.”
While the other capital cities all also notched up greater numbers of homes being discounted than this time last year, the savings in November 2020 were all less than was being offered in November 2019.
READ MORE VIA DOMAIN
