Anna Porter

It's going to be interesting to see how the government handles interest rate rises and inflation because those are things that will affect the market because it makes everything more expensive, including the mortgages.

And if they don't manage that well and we see a lot of price pressure come in and affordability pressure, the big markets like Sydney and Melbourne certainly will feel that.

The more affordable markets, not so much at

Labor currently has a little bit of policy in and around helping first home buyers get into the market by looking at between 30 to 40% stake in the property.

The government will take that stake in the property as sort of a bit of a deposit or a loan scheme.

There are similar programs already running in WA and Tasmania that are relatively successful.

It'll really come down to how many they make available.

They're talking, I think, 10,000 of those packages available.

So that will help some, but not all.

So the devil will be in the detail there.

We're certainly starting to see a fair disparity forming between properties that are renovated and ones that are not renovated in terms of value.

And that is really because the building industry is struggling and the cost of material and the availability of labour and builders is becoming very, very challenging.

So the homes that already have had that done are starting to see that premium, whereas the ones that haven't are getting price discounted and buyers are getting a lot more picky.

So we certainly think that's something that buyers and sellers need to be really aware of as to how that plays into the value of properties.

Yeah, that's a very true statement.

Valuations become dated and outdated very quickly as the market moves.

For years, we've seen it moving upwards in a very aggressive way.

So sales, evidence that a valuer or a buyer might rely on that are three to six months old were irrelevant within three to six months.

You had to be much more aware of what was selling in real time.

And now in Sydney and Melbourne, we're seeing the opposite swing where things are starting to cool, clearance rates are dropping,