about apr/may 2000 a house went on the market, across the road where my daughter lived, the asking price was 85000, regional city, close to the city centre, needed big renovations to bring it to the 21st century......the sellers supposedly were going interstate for a career move, I travelled to Albury to inspect the prop. made arrangement with the agent etc, when I got there and he knew I was going from Melbourne specifically to see the prop.......he told me the sellers had taken it off the market.............ok so a totally wasted trip.... then 3 months later it was back on the market this time for 115,000 plus, ie a mark up of 36%.......again I arranged with the agent (same one) to inspect, he had an open house, I looked and said ok..........there were in excess of 35 people at the same time, first 5 minutes, don't know how many came thru in the half hour it was open, a neighbour said they wanted the place for their son, but thought it was too dear (since they had inspected it at the 85000 figure and thought that was dear),,,,,,,,so I signed the contract there and then............ stock market started crashing from the tech wreck about feb 1999 ?? from memory........... I recently had a conversation with same agent, suggested property has an X factor again due to the turmoil in the stockmarket...........he wants to sell one of my props, suggested sell now as he cannot see it recovering............I reminded him about that other property in 2000, how they upped the price by over 30% in 3 months............he had no answer..............he did ask what he should do about his shares, were valued at over 500.000 now just about 200.000.............. btw still think props are volatile now, but will recover in 6-12 months, *** in selected areas, not across the board, with the usual good criteria !
