Don’t worry about prices - buying opportunities improving fast

Independent economist Tony Alexander says buyers should not wait until prices have bottomed out as there is no way of knowing when a peak or trough occurs until it has been and gone. “These things cannot be reliably picked in advance and history is replete with people who ‘missed out’.

“For instance, there will be thousands of people owning property bemoaning the fact they have missed out on achieving an extremely high sale price because they did not sell before December.”

However, he says if a vendor is selling now for a price 10% less than what they were hoping for when they turned offers down in November, then they will be selling for the price they would have reasonably expected back in June.

“For the overwhelming majority of people even a 20% decline in prices will be meaningless. It will still leave average prices 13% above March 2020 levels.” Below is a graph showing the change in prices from March 2020 to a level 20% below the November 2021 nationwide peak for each region.