Bonds on Break

During my years of involvement in the real estate industry, I have noticed that the market has a very funny way of turning around so rapidly that we all don’t even notice it until, often, it’s too late to make the most of any opportunity it presents. Or, in the best case scenario, we are scrambling around frantically trying to make up for lost ground. Even those of us for whom it’s our job to stay tuned to the market so that we can advise our clients find it challenging to predict what is going to happen.

In August, the Bond family – that is, (husband) Jason Bond, high profile New Farm real estate sales professional, myself, and two-year-old Milla, took off for a little break to one of our favourite chill-out destinations, the Gold Coast. We felt it was a well-earned break, having reached and celebrated All Brisbane Realty’s two year anniversary in style with our Bond themed party, and managing to successfully grow our business in size and profit despite a global economic downturn.

The initial plan was to stay for a week. We took all the essentials for a great holiday – swimmers, sunblock, hat, reading material, toys for Milla, laptop and iphones. Answering queries from the office by the pool and putting together contracts on the beach came so naturally to us that we decided to extend our holiday another week. Luckily the resort didn’t need our room for other holiday-makers. And, to be honest, at that stage, the three of us were prepared to camp out on the beach – who needs a room anyway when you are having such a great time?


Coming back from our holiday, I felt entirely rested and ready for what the rest of the year would bring. And I would say this was the exact moment the proverbial snowball rolling down the hill started to pick up speed. Suddenly, almost overnight it seemed, we started to receive an unexpectedly high level of enquiry and activity across all brackets. It would seem that, when it become apparent that the effects of the Global Financial Crisis were not as severe locally as elsewhere in the world, confidence lifted across many sectors, particularly the local housing market.
Local families decided at this moment to take advantage of what was a lull in activity due to a lack of confidence around the time of the Global Financial Crisis. Activity levels from buyers jumped dramatically over the weeks that followed and, more recently, many New Farm properties our office had listed were receiving multiple offers and some were selling over the asking price.

However, it seems that unfortunately many sellers have missed the boat, so to speak. There is not a lot of New Farm stock available, because most home owners have been holding onto their homes to ride out the quieter market. This creates a highly competitive real estate environment among buyers and at the same time, ideal selling conditions for vendors. But this window won’t stay open for long, so our advice to sellers is to get busy now!