Do you know the definition of a buyers market? Anywhere else in the world I would say “a buyers’ market is when there are more buyers than sellers, so property prices come down and you can find a home for a fair price, if not a bargain”, but in Australia … they say we’re different 
In Australia I guess a buyers’ market is when there is heaps of property for sale, auctions fail with houses being passed in, nobody bids, and still you are lucky if the vendor is willing to negotiate with you using words other than “go higher”.
But jokes aside, I am beginning to see with my own eyes those signs of buyers market I was waiting for. What signs?
Well, for one, the more expensive houses are taking longer to sell, their listings get stuck for 2-3 months, and the advertised price range is being lowered every month or 3 weeks.
Some vendors give up on selling the property they put on the market after about 3 months, and decide to rent it out instead. I see some examples of this very thing happening now in my neighborhood, 2 streets away.
The advertising has changed – many houses show up without a price-range. Instead, the agents put “By Negotiation”, “Contact Agent” or “POA” which means “Price on Application”. Why? They are afraid of scaring people away if they put the price range the vendor would like to achieve. This is the trouble with a changing market – yesterday’s prices are no longer attractive, but agents have no idea what people would be prepared to pay now, so they try to get as many inquiries in and get people to offer what they think is right. This is how they are probing the market now.
And I haven’t even gotten to the falling auction clearance rates, which is not a common phenomenon for this time of year. Traditionally in spring the activity of property market is very high and seeing lots of houses remaining unsold is unusual. The papers say that “grade A houses” – whatever that means – are still sold quickly, but grade B and C houses agents have trouble selling. If this is true, I would expect to see fewer auctions because they are more expensive in advertising and when the prices are going down and the buyers are less keen to buy, paying more for advertising is more risky for vendors.
What is it like where you live? What is your take on this phase of property market?
