The vendor discount and time on market metrics are important measures of current market conditions. The vendor discounting metric looks at properties selling for less than their original list price and looks at the percentage difference from initial list price to ultimate sale price. The time on market metric shows the average number of days between when a property is first listed and when it ultimately sells. It’s important to note that each of these measures is based on private treaty sales and therefore excludes auctions.
In September 2016, the average days on market across the combined capital cities was recorded at 39 days. At the same time a year earlier the average days on market was a slightly lower 36 days.
The second chart highlights the average days on market figure across each of the capital cities for each of the past 8 years in September. Over recent years homes have been selling much quicker in Sydney and Melbourne than they have across the other capital cities…
In September 2016, the typical home which sold at a discount from its original listing price was discounted by -5.7% across the combined capital cities. In comparison, at the same time a year earlier the typical level of discounting was recorded at -6.0%. The lower level of discounting is reflective of more demand and fewer homes for sale but is also likely to reflect more realistic initial listing prices from vendors…
Once again Sydney and Melbourne, along with Canberra, have been seeing low levels of discounting by vendors over recent years. In Sydney and Melbourne in particular this is indicative of strong housing demand which has led to many homes selling in excess of their initial list price…
Leith van Onselen is Chief Economist at the MB Fund and MB Super. He is also a co-founder of MacroBusiness.
Leith has previously worked at the Australian Treasury, Victorian Treasury and Goldman Sachs.
