January Overview – Pushing through pressures and poised for opportunity

We’re out of the gates for the 2025 property market and we’ve seen an immediate uptick in buyer energy. No question, we finished 2024 like the drunken uncle at Christmas, deals were tough to get across the line and buyers were fatigued after another massive year of hustle and bustle. Living in Sydney is not for the faint of heart, with cost-of-living pressures, higher interest rates, record tax intakes, crazy traffic congestion and a surging public service quick to catch you if you marginally cross the line of the over-policed rules we live under.

That said, what a city, and if we could just get a bit more common sense in councils, free up a few rules and ease pressure on general living costs, we could truly lay claim to being the most spectacular place to live in the world. It’s something we should all be working towards – enhancing our local communities, pushing back on ever-increasing Government overreach and creating an environment where we can grow our families with reduced stress and pressure to make ends meet.

We see the burden on people at the coalface as everyone reasons with the cost of living in their preferred suburb. Sure, there is the top 1% where such daily pressures don’t exist, but since COVID we’ve seen a shift in people’s mindset along with a growing pressure to hold a place in their beloved community. Sadly, years of Government neglect around housing affordability, spending wastage, a lack of vision and their ongoing solution being to constantly edge up taxes and excises means people’s cashflow is just being sucked up. This seemingly has so many on the hamster wheel questioning if Sydney is all that the travel brochures espouse to guests visiting our shores.

Yet here we are once again, over the first hurdle for the year and business opportunities, a dazzling harbour, spectacular beaches, parks and a safe living environment have many buyers poised and ready to give Sydney a red-hot go. The gravitas of this city has such a strong pull that so many people can push aside the evident financial challenges and place an increasing level of their earnings into property. Is it right? Not really but is it better than so many alternatives? It appears so.

As we move into this year’s market, there is a desperate need for rates to start being cut. This may not trigger any buying frenzy however it will take the edge off what feels like being right at the precipice of a financial cliff right now. The Federal election will be telling as well, so the first half of this year will have some twists and turns that will impact financial decision-making. It’s clear to us that the search for property and value is high this year, so sellers can look forward to buyer engagement and traction, but we’ll be arm-wrestling on finding that sweet spot for a seller to let go of their asset and for a buyer willing to trade.

Over the coming months it’s going to be a fair market and rightly so. Increased emotion is now evident with both sellers and buyers, which reflects the pressure that many are under to make this whole buying and selling process work financially, so our role has increasingly become one more planted in psychology than just marketing property. I’d suggest this is how many businesses are now operating and as a company we spend so much time in this space to ensure we can best help our growing variety of clientele.