Dan and I were on the job for the Ray White Sunshine network headed up by Ray White stalwart Brett Graham.
The order of sale offered properties right along the north coast, from the entry-level apartment to a number of unit complexes.
The Sunshine Coast was one of the hardest hit markets post-GFC.
This was mainly due to the region’s huge reliance on tourism, and holiday makers owning vacation homes in the area.
These properties are usually the first offloaded when things are bad and the first purchased when the wallet looks a little chubby.
More so than the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast is a cracking barometer of the general economy.
I was keen to get a sense of what was happening.
I wanted to find out whether east coast Aussies were buying holiday homes or still burying their treasure in low yielding bank accounts.
Many of the bidders and sellers on the day had travelled from interstate.
We also fielded a large amount of bids from buyers on the telephone.
During the event itself there was a lot more interaction on the auction floor than you would see at a normal auction.
Agents were announcing the weekly rents, loan brokers were explaining what the repayments would be and in many cases that meant the property on offer was still significantly positively geared.
On the day we cleared about half the properties, which for Queensland is solid, but the big news came from the number of buyers who purchased sight unseen based purely on the rental return. When you see evidence of this happening it demonstrates the confidence buyers have in getting good capital growth down the track.
The other big news was the prices and the participation from the bidders.
We saw a number of properties achieve in excess of 10 per cent above reserve.
There can sometimes be a reluctance from buyers to participate, even at low prices, when the market is flat.
Well, not last Sunday.
Buyers were jovial, laughing and calling out bids with plenty of cheers when a sale was made.
All this sends the message that people are back in buying mode.
With the seasonal summer push along the coastline only a couple of months away, it’s looking like it’s going to be sizzling on the beachfront this Christmas.
Original article published at www.adelaidenow.com.au by Haesley Cush 06/10/16