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Pillinger 2020 End of Year Wrap Up
2020 has certainly been a year like no other, one nobody is likely to ever forget. Despite the pandemic with its border closures and lockdowns, the Australian property market has shown immense resilience.
The first quarter of the calendar year from January to March showed normal activity as expected at the end of any Summer. The Australian Bureau of Statistics recorded a 1.6% rise in residential property prices in Sydney over these three months. The second quarter saw the biggest disruption of our lifetime where the whole of the world halted in March with the rise of the pandemic. The resulting restrictions led to a 2.2% drop in Sydney house prices for this quarter. During this time Pillinger continued to sell top-tier property with four prestige sales ranging from $15 – $51 million.
The last 6 months have been largely unaffected by the pandemic. House prices across the board have shown consistent growth across all capital cities and regional areas since July. There are a number of factors that have kept the market buoyant. Firstly, there has be unprecedented government stimulus such as the JobKeeper & JobSeeker payments, first time home buyer incentives, and the HomeBuilder package. Secondly, The Reserve Bank of Australia cut the cash rate to its lowest levels in history. It now sits at 0.1%. Banks offered mortgage repayment deferrals and people were allowed to access funds from their superannuation. All this, together with a much lower supply of homes for sale, has had a positive flow-on effect for the property market.
The prestige Sydney property market has been very productive in the last 6 months and wasn’t negatively affected by the pandemic. In fact, prices are stronger due to lack of supply, little mortgage stress and positive forecasts. The Australian economy is definitely in recovery and rebounding faster than expected.
Pillinger’s top sales of 2020 were:
‘Routala’ Point Piper $51m
7 Rose Bay Avenue, Bellevue Hill $30m
‘Amberley’ Point Piper $19.5m
20 Ray Avenue, Vaucluse $15.625m
Pillinger’s highlights for 2020 were:
Selling ‘Amberley’ Point Piper for the third time
Top Torrens title sale of the year
Second of four sales in Rose Bay Avenue
100% auction success
Selling for third generation Wallaby, Pat Howard
and every sale of the year, particularly the ones involving repeat clientele.
Our predictions for 2021 are that it will be similar to the past six months with continuing strength of pricing at the top end due to very limited stock, rising overseas investment and positive expectations surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine. We’re looking forward to the new year and hope you and your loved ones had a very Merry Christmas.
Brad Pillinger