auction result facts for this weekend, page-4

Oct 12: Interest rates? Pardon?
By moko | October 12, 2009
extracts only......................
Up here at the top end, interest rate rises or falls typically have only muted effect. Over the weekend, that effect was not only muted, it wasn’t heard at all; drowned in a deafening chorus of bidding. Anything AAA had four or five bidders prepared to pay premiums for the keys to the door.

Given that this market has only weeks to run before entering a hiatus which will last ’til March, some anxiety was to be expected. Apparently outrageous prices paid now may look like value then.

When supply is limited and quality is as rare as chooks’ dentures, even lemons can fly. (Mangled metaphores? We can do those.)

we’re sensing dismay among some of our overseas clients: they’re not affected by interest rates – what’s concerning them is exchange rates.

All this is despite the large number of houses listed for sale. It’s the quality, people, the quality. There’s just not enough of it around.

Only Melbourne? No longer. Following the precedent of swine flu, the virus has now spread to SYD. Look, for example, at a single-fronted house in Bondi. Eleven (!) bidders took it to 20% above reserve. A quick scoot over to Double Bay found five people prepared to pay 10% over.

2007, anyone?

And then there’s a paradox: in the sub-$1 million market there are people praying for interest rate rises to bring prices down somewhere closer to the stratosphere.

http://www.morrellandkoren.com.au/topend/?p=494