PropertyBuzz, your daily dose of property news.
Alerts raised over real estate scams, what’s happening in the student housing sector, and another rising week for auctions.
Welcome to Property Buzz! I’m Juliet Helmke. Today is Tuesday, 27 August.
This scam awareness week, the real estate industry is urging businesses and consumers to be on high alert.
While the total number of reports to Scamwatch has declined this year by 28 per cent, the amount of money taken is on the rise, indicating that Australians are losing higher amounts of money to criminals operating scams.
– Real estate scams are a particular concern, because of the high value of these transactions and the threat of “man-in-the-middle” attacks, where third parties pose as legitimate entities to redirect funds such as settlement payments or property bonds.
– This scam awareness week, individuals are being urged to share their stories to raise awareness of the issue and to help inform fellow consumers about how these attacks can play out. When it comes to real estate, consumers are being urged to perform double checks, such as calling their solicitor or property manager to verify the account details, and always obtaining contact information through independent means.
– Looking at housing stock now, an underappreciated form of housing is suddenly in the spotlight, as the property council raises awareness about the future availability of student accommodation. According to the body, even with the government tightening international student numbers and major cities all seeing new facilities constructed, Sydney and Melbourne will still lack 50,000 beds by 2027.
– Over the next three years student accommodation stock is expected to rise by 19,000 beds across Australia, with Melbourne receiving (30 per cent, Sydney 25 per cent and Brisbane 20 per cent of that supply.
– Even so, demand for purpose built student accommodation in Australia is higher than ever and the current stock ratio is alarmingly slim at one bed per 15 students, meaning so many of Australia’s students are operating in the private rental market.
– And looking at last week’s auctions, the national preliminary clearance rate for the week ending August 25 reached 71.4 per cent, the highest since the last week of July, with spring selling season appearing to have kicked off early.
– All together, 2,052 homes went under the hammer across the capitals last week. It was an increase on the week before but not quite as high as this time last year, when 2,278 dwellings hit the block. The nation’s two major auction markets contributed to the stronger result, with Melbourne hosting 889 auctions to return a preliminary clearance rate of 68.7 per cent – up from 67.4 per cent a week ago. Sydney hosted 807 auctions with a preliminary clearance rate of 74.9 per cent, which just nudged above the previous week’s result of 74.6 per cent.
That’s Property Buzz for today.See you again tomorrow, 28 August, for your daily dose of Property Buzz.
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