With the impending announcement of a Federal Election, there’s considerable speculation about many proposed changes should there be a change of Government.
If the current polls are accurate, all indications are that Bill Shorten will be Australia’s 31st Prime Minister within the next couple of months.
But has the election already been won at this point? …and if the Coalition can pull back enough ground to reclaim an unlikely victory, what are the factors that will drive this.
Certainly, real estate and current taxation laws will be a huge factor and as I’ve shared in previous weeks, the proposed changes to Negative Gearing legislation will be a huge issue that is bound to take centre-stage in the campaign.
There’s already been much debate about how these changes (if they are passed through the Senate when the time comes) will affect property prices around the country.
Personally, I don’t have strong political views in either direction, but I must admit that politics interests me (or perhaps amuses me) as I grow older.
I watched a recent interview with interest…a well-respected Property Analyst Louis Christopher (from ‘SQM Research’) being interviewed by Tom Panos. Tom is one of Sydney’s leading auctioneers and known to be one of Australia’s leading real estate coaches…having trained and mentored thousands of agents over the past two decades.
Tom runs a Social Media program that he calls “Sunday Night Rant”, primarily aimed at real estate agents but it is open to the general public…and Tom provides insights into the market and more particularly, mindset coaching for agents across Australia.
It’s worth a watch on Facebook if you want to see what happens ‘inside’ the real estate industry but be warned – Tom is known to shoot straight from the hip and doesn’t mind dropping a few swear words here and there.
This is quite a long interview (about 30 minutes) but I’ve included a link below as I thought this gives a fascinating insight into Negative Gearing and the effects of changes that have occurred (or simply been proposed) to the property market in years gone by…when similar proposals were tabled by those with the power to change them.
You may remember (as Louis points out in the interview) that Paul Keating proposed similar changes in the 1980’s but eventually backflipped on the idea due to a large undercurrent of disharmony at the idea.
For anyone that wants a simple explanation of the current laws, what the proposed changes are and what the possible effects will be, this is a fabulous interview and one that I’d highly recommend taking the time to watch.
On another note, the most common question we’re being asked from potential sellers right now is this…
“I’ve heard that the market is very slow in the lead-up to a Federal Election. Is this true and should I wait before I list my property for sale?”
I’ve been in real estate sales for almost 20 years and this will be the 6th Federal Election that I’ve watched since being in real estate sales.
For two of the first three of them, we were right in the middle of a massive property boom, so the market didn’t suffer at all!
We definitely experienced a slowing in the number of transactions since the 2010 Federal Election and what I found fascinating is that once the Election was done and dusted, the market picked up immediately irrespective of the result.
What I did notice during the past three Federal Elections was that buyer enquiry slowed right down but the amount of new properties to the market slowed down as well…meaning that if anyone needed to purchase at this time (and there’s always buyers that need to purchase), then there wasn’t as much choice and many of the sales were completed at outstanding prices.
There are two factors that consumers often falsely associate in real estate…and that’s ‘turnover’ and ‘results’.
You may have heard me say before that one of the biggest misconceptions in real estate is that Spring is the best time to sell a property.
It’s true that there’s more turnover in Spring than in any other season in Australia but there’s also a huge amount of new stock to the market in Spring…and with more choice for buyers, this doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll achieve a better price!
In fact, some of the best prices I’ve ever achieved for properties are made in times when many expect things to be very slow – primarily right before Christmas or during the middle of Winter.
So, if you’re trying to ‘second guess’ the market as the Federal Election looms, keep this in mind and understand that the slowing turnover doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t move forward with your plans.
Until next week, Happy Listing and Happy Selling!