“Blitz” of stock forecast to hit Australia’s property market

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Over recent weeks, leading Sydney real estate agent and auctioneer, Tom Panos, has warned that the RBA’s latest rate hike could be the “tipping point” for the housing market that could deliver a wave of forced selling.

Panos has also advised home owners that are struggling to meet mortgage repayments to sell now before the wave of stock lands in the spring.

In his latest YouTube update, Panos reiterated that the market has hit a “tipping point” and advised vendors to put their homes on the market now before a “blitz” of forced sales hits the market in Spring:

“It’s getting really concerning and the reason why is we now know this was the Tipping Point where people that are coming off fixed rates and going on to variable”.

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“For the record, most of those people are coming on between July and September, and what I want to let you know is that the reason why it’s concerning is that RP data is saying there is a record number of people getting CMAs [comparative market analysis] done at the moment”.

“CMAs are the step one before a home comes on the market. We know we’re about to have the biggest blitz of stock hitting the market in many years in the next few months”.

“The reason I’m worried is some of these people are going to be the ones that simply can’t afford six percent”.

“Their repayments have more than doubled. These people are going to put their homes on the market and what it’s going to do is it’s going to drag the value of your property down as well if you’re on the market at the same time”.

We will only know after the fact whether or not this is the ‘tipping point’ for the housing market.

However, Panos is correct about huge volumes of fixed rate mortgages expiring over coming months (see next chart), which could logically usher a wave of forced sales over Spring.

Fixed rate mortgage reset

The pressure to sell will also build if the RBA hikes rates two more times in July and August, as forecast by Westpac, ANZ and NAB.

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About the author
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.