The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
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The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
NOVAK NEWS - NORTHERN BEACHES MID-YEAR PROPERTY MARKET RECAP & WHAT'S AHEAD
The property market landscape across Sydney's Northern Beaches has undergone significant shifts in the first half of 2025, presenting both challenges and opportunities for buyers and sellers alike. What started as a rocky period has gradually stabilised, creating a unique market environment characterised by reduced stock levels and heightened buyer activity.
With approximately 640-650 properties currently listed across the Northern Beaches—well below the typical 850—we're witnessing a fascinating market dynamic where quality properties are quickly snapped up while less desirable offerings linger. This dichotomy has fuelled a competitive buyer landscape, particularly for homes that tick the three essential boxes: proximity to water, convenient access to shops, and good transport connections.
The buyer demographic has diversified remarkably this year. First-home buyers dominate the entry-level market, often purchasing with partners to strengthen their loan applications or receiving parental assistance. Meanwhile, downsizers seeking luxury properties with specific features like lifts and low-maintenance yards represent another significant buying force. Perhaps most notably, we're observing the return of investors to the market despite the April legislation preventing overseas investors from purchasing Australian property.
Interest rates have emerged as the primary market driver, with each 0.25% cut increasing borrowing capacity by an impressive 7-10%. With predictions of rates reaching 3.1% by June 2026, buyers are rushing to enter the market before potential price increases follow the expanded borrowing capacity. This has created a compelling opportunity for sellers who choose to list now rather than waiting for spring—a strategy we describe as "selling in isolation rather than competition."
Got questions about timing your next property move in the Northern Beaches? Visit our office on the corner of Pittwater Road in Dee Why on Delmar Parade. We're available until 8pm every Monday and ready to provide personalised advice for your specific situation.
Good afternoon, good evening, everyone tuning in to tonight's Novak News, or Real Talk as we now call it. Tonight you have myself, thomas Sims and next to me, Jonathan Vescio from the Novak sales team, and we're discussing this Northern Beaches mid-year property market recap and what's ahead for the second half of 2025. Stay tuned, hello, hello everyone, welcome. Hope you're well, hope everyone's had a nice weekend. It's Monday night and we are ready to really dive deep into what has happened so far in the first half. We're calling it of 2025 being the 30th of June, and we'll give you our local insights to what we think is to come in the second half, as you'd call it. Jono, how are you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, good, good, I like the new music. Yeah, nice. Yeah, it's actually quite good. Starting off with Real Talk this is our first ever Real Talk session. Yeah, yeah, used to be Monday Night News. We've swapped it up a bit. I quite like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it feels more human. Yeah, it feels like more of a conversation rather than like we're presenting as news anchors. Yeah, yeah, that's very true. So I feel a bit more comfortable, yeah, a bit more comfortable, yeah. Yeah, let's talk about what we've seen so far in 2025, selling, renting, everything included. So we'll jump straight in and discuss price trends, which is a big topic across the northern beaches here in Sydney. A lot of people we're speaking with you know buyers, sellers, investors, developers, it's all. It's one of the first questions we hear have prices risen, dipped or held steady and stabilised.
Speaker 2:What do you think so far? So far, I mean it's been a little bit of a wavy market, to be honest with you. I mean I've been in sales now for just over two years and this year, in comparison to last year, has been a very rocky year in real estate. I mean the first maybe four months was a little bit up and down, up and down. We've now started to see a bit of a stable. In the last month or so I've seen we're stabilising on that price point and where we're sitting.
Speaker 2:But at the beginning of the year I mean the stock levels were higher and I mean the stock was sitting on the market for quite some time. It's started done a bit of a flip now. It's actually the complete opposite to what was happening at the beginning. But those price trends I mean at the beginning of the year they were a little bit lower than what they are now. In my opinion. I think they are on their way up. That's probably due to interest rate drops and more buyers being a little bit more confident with their money now. But yeah, I think it's on its way up. At the moment it's sitting a little bit stable, but from the beginning of the year, it's definitely risen, yeah, and speaking of stock levels, we're holding quite steady over the last couple of weeks at about 650 properties, houses and apartments on the northern beaches and we're seeing stock.
Speaker 1:We're seeing good stock move quickly at about 650 properties, houses and apartments on the northern beaches and we're seeing stock. We're seeing good stock move quickly and we're also seeing some stock just kind of sit on the market and almost linger, which is a point of discussion next. So stock levels about 650 on the market, 640, I think. Stock levels about 650 on the market, 640, I think, as of 745 on Monday night. So that's one thing I wanted to also ask, jono we go to similar open homes every Wednesday, saturday and Sunday. But in terms of buyer activity, who have you seen buying? Who are the clients that come through the open homes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, at the moment we're seeing I mean it's a really good mix of both. So, like Thomas said, those really well-priced properties I mean those entry-level houses, entry-level apartments they're going really quickly to majority first-home buyers. So we're seeing a lot of them. I mean we're selling a lot of those entry-level houses to people you know upsizing from their apartments into a house. We're seeing a lot of that kind of turnover.
Speaker 2:We're seeing a lot of having to sell to buy, though. So a lot of those buyers who are having to sell their two-bedroom apartment to then buy a house. We're not seeing a lot of people who are able to hold on to those previous assets, turn them into an investment and then move into the house per se. So I mean we're getting a lot of those first home buyers, people looking to their first home or even their first apartment. We're getting a lot of those people coming through as well, as we're actually getting quite a few investments, as, of the past couple of weeks, the investors are starting to pick up a little bit now, definitely speaking to a lot more at Open Homes. Yeah, I'm speaking.
Speaker 1:I do a bit lower priced stock than Jonathan here and I see a lot of first-home buyers. I speak to a lot of first-home buyers buying with their partners so that they can get their loans, and even young young adults who are getting help from their parents. It's quite regular that I see those types of buyers. I've also been meeting a lot of downsizers, people who are or have sold their homes. You know four or five-bedroom houses and are now just looking to downsize and do a two-bedroom apartment, for example, so that their kids can come and stay every now and again or they can just have that second bed as their office workspace.
Speaker 2:And that's. That's very true. Yeah, so I'm seeing those downsizes as well. I mean we've got a luxury, brand-new duplex up in Seaforth and we're getting a lot of those downsizes as well. I mean we've got a luxury, uh, brand new duplex up in c4th and we're getting a lot of those downsizes who want the lift, who want the little bit of a yard but don't want to do the maintenance. That's got astroturf, so it's very low maintenance. Um, it's very convenient for um, for older people looking to, you know, buy the last place and stay there forever, kind of thing. We're getting a lot of those coming through as well. So we're seeing a very diverse market. It's been everywhere.
Speaker 1:But there's lots and lots of them, yeah, in all properties all across our open home run. There's buyers everywhere for almost everything, yeah.
Speaker 2:We very rarely get a zero through an open. Over the past maybe month or so, it's been very intense really with the open homes. We're getting 10 to 20 groups through some open. So it's the buyers are definitely out there and there's a lot of them, um, and they're coming in waves and they're all looking at very similar things. So that's stuff that's well priced, um, stuff that's obviously convenient. So we're seeing a lot of people want to be closer to the water, want to be close to shops, um, and want to be close to transport. Those are the big three factors for a lot of people and if you've got those three things in a property, I mean you're getting 20 groups to run open on the weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I actually want to link that to what we're coming to next. It's really important that you link that to what's been driving the market so far in this first half we'll call it of 2025. And a major, major factor I've seen is the first interest rate cut this year, and also everyone's looking closely at what's coming. So we have a lot of clients that we talk to, a lot of financial advisors and brokers who have predicted a further two rate cuts in what we'll call the second half of 2025. I just want to talk about that as well and how that drives the market and how it's brought this massive wave of buyers into this pool of stock in the northern beaches.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, the interest rates have dropped quite a bit, which is probably why we're seeing not as much stock on the market, because people don't really need to worry about selling if they've. They're not paying as much interest um on their mortgage. So I think we're seeing a lot less stock due to that, but we are also seeing a lot more buyers due to that. So it's it's not really balanced itself out at the moment. We've got too many buyers and not enough stock um, which never really happens. It's typically the other way around we've got a lot of stock but not enough buyers, um, so at the moment, it's actually really good for a seller's market because there's not a lot of there's a lot of competition. Sorry for the buyers, um, and there's not much to choose from. So, um, I mean yeah, that's kind of my take on it there's there's not really much happening.
Speaker 2:But those interest rates there there's now been two drops, obviously this year, um, and they're predicting that the rate's going to be down to 3.1 percent by june 2026. So I mean going into the the second half of the year and and everybody's who's seeing this information that you know they're jumping on it, that they have to, they have to buy now, um, before the prices get too high, which is what everybody's predicting, um, but in my opinion I think that's kind of the drive from the market. Those two, those two interest rate drops, have done so much for people being able to borrow. I mean every single 0.25 percent drop we see in interest rates that increases your borrowing capacity by seven to ten percent, yeah, every time. So I mean, if there's another three of those going into next year, then you know the borrowing capacity goes up by a lot yeah, that's incredible insight to have, you don't?
Speaker 1:you don't see that or hear that um every day, and especially coming from your agent. I know a lot of people have bad personas of real estate agents, but you've got to understand that this is what we hear. This is what we do every day. We live and breathe this. It's an incredible, incredible tip to get from an agent. That's how you can almost differentiate a good agent from a bad agent. They'll tell you these things and I want to link that as well.
Speaker 1:I was going to talk about some maybe global factors, um, that are affecting the market. You know, with stock um the stock market being quite uncertain, um people looking to go into property, but I really love the tip you gave everyone just then. So let's move to the opportunities buyers and sellers have in this current market with our local insights and you've just heard one there so he's given you a great tip for a buyer in this low stock market you need to buy now. It is an incredible time to buy now. I know there's further interest rates coming, but you've got to understand with such low stock, this is the time to buy. Do you have any advice for sellers on timing and presentation of their properties in today's market.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, well, for sellers. I mean, I think everybody's always waiting for spring. In my opinion, I don't really see it. I get why everybody wants to wait for spring, because it's, you know, the sunniest suburb, especially around here. It's a sunny suburb. You want to be near the beach. That's the kind of the lifestyle that you're trying to. You know, sell to a buyer.
Speaker 2:But in saying that I mean that right now there's 640 stock on the market and we typically see about 850 across the whole northern beaches. So we're down by about 200 um, which doesn't sound like a lot when you've got 640, but it's, it's a lot. Yeah, you know, when you, when you walk past a for sale, sign in dy, then you kind of you're kind of thirding that to what you would typically see um. So I mean there's, there's not much stock out there. So it's a good time to sell when there's no stock. That's my advice to buyer when you see there's low stock and the agent's telling you that there's no stock on the market, it's the best time to sell, because you're best to sell in isolation rather than in competition. So you don't want to be competing with 900 properties on the market, you'd rather be competing with 600.
Speaker 1:Quote that you need to quote that if you're listening in. You need to sell in isolation, not competition. That is something that you just need to embed into your head if you're thinking of selling, and he's absolutely spot on there. We met with a client today who's thinking of selling her property. She is very smart, she's very active in the market, she knows what's selling, she knows what's on the market, and we just we gave her one sentence and it was that there's 13 other properties similar to hers on the market right now in her suburb. And she got. She pretty much said exactly what jono said she wants to sell it right now, as soon as possible, because she knows now is the time to put her property on the market. Yep, so Again, it's a trend we're seeing week to week.
Speaker 1:Owners are telling us and we make probably combined 500 to 1,000 calls a week from our phones just from two phones and the trend we're seeing is that owners are waiting until spring. So we heavily advise you to just rethink your timing there. Presentation a lot of properties here speak for themselves and they work for themselves, but it's the timing that's so, so important in a market like this. You really need to think about stock levels, you really need to think about how many buyers are out there. So that's again another tip from an agent, from your local agent, that you just need to take into account when you're thinking about these things.
Speaker 2:I think also just quickly, we need to touch on the. If your property does present better in the summer or in the spring, then you should be putting your property on the market then, regardless of the stock. So some places are northeast facing. You get amazing light in summer, but you get shocking light in winter. So that's when you've also got to look at that sort of stuff as well. So some places don't present amazingly in winter. They're cold, they don't get too much natural light in winter just due to the sun trajectory. But during summertime if you have better light coming in and your property looks more presentable, then it's definitely a good time to pop it on then. So you've also got to take that into account as well. Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said. All right, so now we're gonna almost wrap up, but we're gonna tell you what to expect in the second half of 2025, july through to december. Um, we've already we've already, you know spoken about is there a spring surge? Are we predicting a spring surge?
Speaker 2:I'd. I don't. I don't think so personally. Um, I mean, we spoke to a photographer today who does he's been doing photography for property for over 10 years and he does a lot for all agencies along the Northern Beaches and he said he's down about 60% to what he usually is. So usually we do see a spring surge. We have felt it coming in the last few years, but in this year it seems like we're not seeing too much of a surge going to be coming in spring. I mean, there definitely will be stock dropping, but I don't think it's going to be as intense as everybody's thinking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with you, you know, sitting at $6.50 stock when we usually have about $8.50, I can't even see it coming up there. I know there's going to be stock that sells very quickly and that's going to have a good factor coming into spring. When you get into spring and you have all of your like he said north-facing apartments, they're going to move so, so quickly. They're going to melt like butter. It is going to be crazy. So you need to take that into account if you're looking. Another you know potential market headwind to think about is cost of living, the interest rate predictions that we discussed and even investor confidence as well. So, as we said, we have a few investors over the last couple of weeks coming to our open homes you need to think about is investor confidence rising or is it deplenishing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I think we're seeing. We're still seeing a lot of investors. Surprisingly, due to, you know, the April 1st, the laws change, legislation change. We weren't able we're no longer able to sell to overseas investors I think it was for 24 months, off the top of my head so we're not seeing those overseas investors coming in, but we are still seeing a lot of investors on the northern beaches. Surprisingly, as long as you reside in Australia, really, you can buy properties and investment, but if you do have an overseas address, you cannot. So that's a good bit of insight for people. Some people don't know that. I actually didn't know that until last week yeah, last week, when somebody tried to buy with an american address and um, and then I found out the legislation. So, um, it's always good to know that sort of stuff there you go, so we're going to wrap this up, um.
Speaker 1:If you have any questions about the second half of 2025, if you need to chat with us, um to find out when would be a good time to sell your property or when's a good time to buy your next property, feel free to come into our office. You know where we are on the corner of Pitwater Road in DY on Delmar Parade. We're always available. As you know, we're here till eight o'clock every Monday. We'll be in the office whenever you are available. Hope you guys have a really good night and we'll see you again.
Speaker 2:We'll chat with you again in a few weeks time. We're back on real talk, on real talk, all right, good night guys. Thanks for being one.