It was nine months ago that I started writing about the reality of housing prices in Australia here. Since then I've posted about our experience dealing with mortgage brokers and attending open homes for sale.
A couple of things came to my attention just yesterday that encouraged me to quickly post this update on the situation that may be of interest, especially to Canadian readers as we seem to share similar dynamics in this part of our economy.
Observation 1
It was perhaps 6 or 7 months ago that my wife and I were casually looking at acreage properties for sale in Brisbane, Queensland (the state to the north of New South Wales). I blogged a little about our assessment of that experience and discussed it verbally in my interview on
's Music & Money Show on MSP Waves Radio.
We didn't end up making an offer on anything as our assessment at the time was that it was not a market we wanted to enter. The phone calls and interest died off and we moved on with our lives.
Just yesterday, my wife received a call from one of the real estate agents who had shown us one home over half a year ago. I recall her despite us only meeting her once.
She asked my wife whether we had found a property. My wife responded that we hadn't. The agent apparently sounded elated at hearing this and proceeded to talk about how she'd be pleased to show us around some more and generally attempt to rekindle our long dead "interest".
Hearing of the encounter struck me with a sense of desperation. I'm not a stranger to property purchases and sales. I've owned a few in my time in different parts of the country and yet being contacted by an agent 6 or 7 months on in an attempt to solicit business was a new experience.
To me, I'd have thought that the agent would have first worked though all of the phone numbers she had collected most recently first if she was short of sales; progressing further and further into the past until she found some interest. Obviously she was calling contacts who she'd not hand anything to do with over over half a year in order to get to us.
Her enthusiasm seemed dashed when my wife told her that we simply weren't interested in this market. Anecdotally, possibly a story she'd been hearing a lot on the phone of late.
It's subjective, but interesting nonetheless.
Observation 2
This is a quicky from Benjamin Law on twitter. I came upon this tweet courtesy of 
https://twitter.com/mrbenjaminlaw/status/963616619502100480
- mrbenjaminlaw