Posts by Cate Bakos

There are many quirks and surprising elements to property purchasing. Here are just twelve things that most people don’t know about.

Geelong has experienced an incredible transformation over the decades. Once an industrial town, known for manufacturing and in particular, the Ford plant. The challenges Geelong faced during some tough times, (such as the Pyramid Building Society collapse and the Ford plant closure) had some suggesting that this regional city’s capital growth prospects were questionable. But…

Buyers have become trained to ask for off-markets, putting an unwarranted value on them. They do this in the hope that they’re getting access to something secret and undervalued. But what happens if the property isn’t a secret, and isn’t good value?

Despite opinion about the stage three tax cut, we have to consider how it could impact our property market. Like all cash incentives and net cashflow hikes, markets do get impacted.

As the year draws to a close, I reflect on the many changes to housing that have resulted since the pandemic. This past eighteen months has also thrown us many challenges as we grapple with the impact of inflationary pressures on our lives. The Reserve Bank’s cash rate hikes have played their part too, as…

Yesterday I received a call from a great journalist. He was covering Melbourne’s auction results and asked me to weigh in on a significant result in Brunswick East. The house reportedly sold for some one million dollars above reserve. Once I checked the listing, this record-breaking figure for its land size was no shock to…

I remember when this practise was ruled out by new legislation. Much of 2002 and 2003’s newsfeed covered the reasons for the crackdown, including citing fines for those caught dummy bidding (or arranging dummy bidders). Agents wondered how the declaration of “vendor bid” would impact auctions, and at the time I recall a broad commitment…

I get asked this question a lot. In fact, one of my students asked me specifically how a corner site compared to a regular site when we were conducting comparable sales analysis in class. The answer is… it depends. A corner site has it’s challenges, but it has pro’s too. It all depends on the…

As the selling season approaches it’s close for year, what can we anticipate in 2024?