Happy New Year to everyone that reads this blog. I hope you all had a fabulous Christmas and wonderful New Year.

Mine seemed to go a little too quickly and we were working right through the break with appointments every day except Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

During this Christmas ‘break’, we secured three sales and are still working with buyers for another four of our properties that were inspected during this time.

We opened our properties every Saturday (December 21, 28 and January 4) and interestingly, the two Saturdays’ in December brought us the highest average number of buyers per property in the October to December quarter.

Some of our sellers wanted those weeks off but the ones that wanted us to continue to open their properties experienced some very good buyer numbers.

In our area, we noticed that a couple of other agencies opened homes on December 21, but we were the only agents in our area that opened properties on December 28 – the very week where are numbers were highest for the quarter.

Every year, we’re constantly surprised how many buyers are out and about at this time of year and the 2019 Christmas period was the best example yet of why a seller shouldn’t worry about Christmas when listing their property for sale.

I’m amazed how many buyers told us that they enquired (both via phone and e-mail) on properties listed with other agents and they didn’t receive any reply whatsoever for more than two weeks.

How many opportunities must their sellers have missed to secure a sale?

It’s another little tip from me…albeit a little late for 2019 but it’s something to keep in mind if you’re considering selling around Christmas time in years to come.

So, what will the year of 2020 behold for us in the property market?

There’s plenty of predictions doing the rounds in the media already and we’ve seen since sales figures released for the fourth quarter of 2019 where Sydney and Melbourne experienced their biggest gains over a 90-day period since the last quarter of 2016.

This is obviously on the back of further interest rate cuts and most experts seem to be hinting that the first 6 months of this year will be buoyant, but the second half of 2020 might not be so cheerful for sellers.

In Brisbane, we seem to continue to do what we’ve done since 2008….and that’s virtually nothing.

In terms of houses, the market has experienced small gains here and there over the last 12 years and at other times, some very small losses but we have had by far the most stable property in Australia for a long time now.

Units and townhouses have been a different story with tough market conditions due to over-supply numbers of new stock but whilst the figures have been ordinary for some time, there’s evidence to suggest that this segment of the market is awakening from its’ slumber and we’re seeing this ourselves in the units and townhouses we have had for sale.

With Christmas spending around the country reported to be down by a reasonable margin, many are predicting the flow-on effect to the economy to bite in the months ahead and similarly to what we’ve seen for a few years now, we’re seeing major retailers placed into receivership as they simply cannot compete with online spending.

How this affects the property market remains to be seen but many leading economists are worried that unemployment will rise, and this will place significant pressure on the economy.

Tourism has been a major backbone of the economy for some time and reportedly generates $110 billion of economic activity every single year but the international media attention on our current bushfire situation is expected to “adversely affect tourism for many years to come”.

You only need to see widely misrepresented details like this map that appeared on the website of ABC in America to understand that many will avoid coming to Australia because they’ll think there’s nothing left…

Consumer confidence is also down according to those that monitor these sorts of things and right now, there are plenty of factors that point towards some tough times ahead.

As always, time will tell.

Whilst I write this blog about matters relating to property, it would be remiss of me not to mention the terrible tragedies and horrors left behind by the bushfires.

I have several good friends and past clients that have lost their homes and everything they own in the past few weeks and it’s devastating to see the videos and photos emerging of what the brave firefighters are experiencing, the devastation and the horror of the people that have lost their lives and the reported one billion animals that have also perished – these are hard numbers to comprehend.

Many of you will know that I’ve used the same photographer in property since 2007 but before this time, my photographer for a number of years was a great guy Josh Collings.

You may have seen Josh in the news as he appeared on the front page of the Herald Sun in Melbourne having lost everything in the fire, and since then, he’s been in the media across Australia as he’s leading the charge to bring in supplies and raise money for his local community in Cudgewa. He’s pretty much ignored his own personal misfortune and is spending 100% of his efforts working to re-build his community.

I’ve seen many of his Social media posts and videos of late…and some of the images are just gut-wrenching to say the least.

As you know, the discussion has turned into a political one with some blaming climate change, others blaming the ‘Greens’ and many turning against ‘Sco-Mo’.

What baffles me is that it has been reported that 75% of these fires burning are the result of someone deliberately lighting them…and it’s not just kids. How on earth could anyone set out to destroy so many lives?

The amount of money raised has been truly astonishing with many international celebrities, businesses and everyday people digging deep into their pockets to donate to lots of different worthwhile charities.

At ‘Innov8 Property’, we’ve discussed how we can help, and we’ve decided that we’ll be donating $500 from each property sale between now and April to the charity of choice for each of our sellers.

To be honest, it’s not something that we’re going to widely promote as I don’t want this to be misinterpreted as a way to use a horrible misfortune to generate business as this is not what our intentions are.

But we do want to do our bit in helping those going through unimaginable suffering.

Be rest assured, if you sell a property through us in this period, we’ll be asking you where you’d like us to donate this money.

On a more positive note, we hope that 2020 brings you much love, fun, enjoyment, fulfillment, satisfaction and laughter.

As always, we’ll see you next week and Happy Listing and Happy Selling if you’re currently in the property market.