We are almost through February, and it's time for our next monthly market update. There hasn't been too much movement in the market this month, but things are slowly changing. Interest rates are still going up and they will continue to do so. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand raised the OCR 7 times in 2022 and we all know what the banks do when this happens. The last time this number of increases happened it was 2005, so it's not unheard of. I talked about predictions in a previous video, so if you are interested in what the market is doing, please do go and have a look at that. I'm predicting that the interest rates will continue to rise until inflation is down to 2%. However, that doesn't stop the property market - we are definitely still selling homes and there are still buyers out there looking and paying for the right home.
We are always looking at new research and statistics to make sure we are on top of the market trends, and some statistics that have recently come out of a realestate.com.au survey have been very insightful. A survey was completed on users of the Real Estate Australia website, of which we have our own version here in New Zealand. Considering that Australia is slightly ahead of us in terms of the market, we can expect the results to be similar to what they would be if the same survey was conducted here in New Zealand. Now this won't be news to you if you have sold with us before, but it just confirms that our strategy and approach to selling your home is up there with what the people want. At Najib, we will always use a price guide when selling your property, regardless of what the market is doing. Realestate.com.au said that 72% of buyers would likely skip past or ignore properties that did not display a price or a price guide.
When selling your home, we want to make sure that we are engaging 100% of the market and we definitely don't want you to start off on the back foot by making things difficult for buyers. Especially by not having something as simple as a price guide. This is the first step in creating a strategy, and ending that strategy with a sale. We want to emphasise that the game of selling is engaging 100% of the market, so we want to make sure that we aren't losing 72% of your buyers right off the bat. If an agent is telling you that they won't put a price guide or a price on your home, that you should leave it up to the market, that's a massive red flag. When you come to us, you deal with 100% of the market, not 28%.
40% of buyers don't go past the first page of results on the realestate.com.au website, which emphasises the importance of the marketing of your property and not just marketing it beautifully but also aggressively. When it comes to marketing and advertising, your home must be front and centre, always. The last thing you want is for buyers to be frustrated before even turning up to your open home and the top two things that frustrate buyers are not having a price or price guide (71%) and not having a floor plan (54%). We know that, which is why when you list with us, your home will always have both of those things.
We have discussed the importance of price guides before, but this new research just reiterates that importance. We hope that this becomes standard across the real estate industry, but until then, rest assured that at Najib we will always prioritise this.
Using a price guide is just part of the strategy that we create for you. First, we listen, then we provide our expert advice and experience in what the market is doing. Our strategy includes advice from our in house marketing team, presenting your home with the best staging, photos and videos as well as having one of our skilled negotiators alongside you for the duration of the process. We want to get the best possible price for your home, and we are confident that you want that too. There is no "one size fits all" for selling a home, which is why it's so important to be open and transparent throughout, including changing the price guide depending on what the market is doing. We know what's important and our strategy isn't complicated. We want to make it as simple and easy as we can for buyers, and our strategy always ends with a sale.
Predictions Video - Watch here
Article on Price Guides - Read here
Nathan Najib