To buy or not to buy- That is the question.
If there is a question I am asked more than any other in real estate, its “is it a good time to buy?”. The answer to that question is simple. Real estate success, which most people see as owning something worth more than you paid for it, is generally more about time in the market than timing the market.
To expand on that, for the most part our property market runs in cycles of lows and highs. The highs tend to be higher than last time, and the lows are also generally higher than last time. BUT if you buy at the top of a high there is a chance your property values will fall to below what you paid for it at some time before picking back up to be worth more than you paid for it at some stage. So if you can just hold it for long enough that the value is worth more than the purchase price ( as in time in the market) then you are on a winner.
Why do I bring this up this week? Well normally markets are pretty easy to pick and so long as you don’t buy at the absolute peak of a raging Bull market your money is pretty safe. The thing is, with all that’s going on with Covid and Victorian lockdown at the moment we are getting artificial buyers markets and sellers markets being driven by government policy and access. So it’s not following natural trends and you end up guessing to a degree whether to take the plunge or not, just in case some new Government lockdown means you can’t get tenants or buyers if you really need them.
If I had to make a professional call ( and I do every day), I’d say there are opportunities in the market at the moment and if you know how to correctly value real estate you should be fine making that purchase. There are a number of frustrated buyers sitting in the wings that haven’t been able to shop for 6 months and the national government is throwing cash around like they are printing it, ( no…wait…they do), so my take is that come the true summer silly season the raging bull is going to make an appearance again. So if you are going to go, my suggestion would be …go now. Best of luck. Cheers. Garry
