For many buyers and sellers, Saturday was undoubtedly the first real estate day of the year with open homes back in full swing following a week of strong new listings activity both here on the Gold Coast and right around the country.

Deciding to buy a house is a significant life event, and timing plays a pivotal role in ensuring a successful and financially sound investment. As we step into 2024, prospective homebuyers are eager to identify the optimal window for making this crucial decision. In this blog, we'll explore the key factors influencing the real estate market in 2024 and guide you on determining the best time to embark on your homeownership journey.

It's incredible how much property information circulates each year as we approach the Christmas & New Year period.

This year has been no different with an extraordinary amount of statistics released that focus on what has transpired in the property market over 2023 and then projecting forward to what we may expect in 2024.

As Robina, the suburb that I love, continues to evolve, the suburb is poised for a future that holds promise and potential. From urban development to technological advancements, there's much to anticipate in this thriving corner of the Gold Coast. In this blog, let's delve into the exciting possibilities and speculate on what the future might hold for Robina.

As we move into the final month of 2023 we have a wide range of articles, reports and forecasts that will give you and your clients a terrific overview of the property market.

The growth in property prices this year has been quite phenomenal with the Gold Coast experiencing growth of 11.8% according to RP Data which is a combined house and unit summary.

With the year now in its last month, what will 2024 bring? This is a question that we are hoping to help you with in this week's report.

A report released last week confirmed that the Gold Coast property market has staged an incredible price rebound throughout the vast majority of 2023.

The report, which was released by realestate.com.au this week, focussed on the major Regional areas across the country that had posted positive price growth.

As you will see below, the Gold Coast has fared incredibly well over the past year but also over the past five years.

As more sellers make the decision to list their property for sale, articles such as one that appeared in last week's Australian Financial Review provide evidence of just how strong buyer interest has been.

Although the article is based on new Gold Coast apartment sales, the sentiment in this article can't be ignored and has also extended to the Gold Coast resale market.

Last week's latest interest rate rise has been met with mixed opinion, mixed reports and mixed results.

Rather than try and articulate the various opinions and evidence available since Tuesday's Cup day rate increase, we have decided to provide the information for you to make your own assessments.

At this time of the year many property insiders choose to cast an eye forward and think about what might happen in 2024.

Whilst the market has been buoyant over the past six to eight months, the looming interest rate increase on Tuesday has many wondering what the outlook will be moving forward.

In last week's report, we discussed how in 2023, homeowners were choosing to hold on to a property for longer.

In 2013, the average length of homeownership for a House was seven years and for a Unit it was six years.

Just ten years later, home tenure has now increased to nine years for houses and eight years for units.

The recent history of the Australian housing market has been characterised by remarkable growth juxtaposed with periods of recalibration and localised corrections. Cities such as Sydney and Melbourne have frequently captured attention with their robust price escalations, but the landscape is far from uniform, with regional disparities in the pace and scale of growth.

A question that is often asked of us is are listing numbers increasing?

With all forms of media currently declaring that new listings to market are increasing, a report released by Realestate.com.au on Friday shows just how listing conditions vary from region to region and state to state.

The advantages for homeowners who made the decision to sell their home over the past few months has been highlighted by an article printed in last week's Gold Coast Bulletin.

The article, with the heading "Q3 price surge:Latest home values in every suburb revealed" showed that prices on the Gold Coast have increased strongly over the past three months.

We have two lead pieces this week, one being the monthly CoreLogic market update for September 2023 and the other an article that appeared on realestate.com.au discussing the increasing activity of investors.

In what is undoubtedly good news for the Gold Coast, our region is now being recognised as the most popular place in Australia to invest - and with good reason

Please see below our feature article from realestate.com.au with the heading "The State where investors are flocking".

With listing numbers now starting to increase, an interesting article appeared last week discussing which group of property owners have been the most active over the past few years.

The article with the headline "More homeowners are selling quickly - should we be worried" raises some surprising statistics with one key fact being that a higher percentage of properties coming to market are properties that have previously been purchased post the Covid pandemic.

When it comes to property, it's hard to avoid the theme that we have been running with over the past few weeks simply because it is the major talking piece in the media at present.

At present, all the signs are pointing to a sharp rise in listing numbers as we enter spring, with the discussion point being how this increase in listings will impact prices.

This week's lead story comes from a Proptrack report that focuses on this exact topic. The full report and its findings are below.

With many of our future sellers still taking a "wait and see" approach when it comes to selling, an article that appeared in yesterday's Gold Coast Bulletin should provide a significant confidence boost as well as a call to action.

Whilst many clients are waiting for the traditional Spring selling period, for those sellers that have chosen to list their home earlier, the results have been spectacular.

With Spring now less than two weeks away, the question of when is the right time to sell a property is becoming a hot topic for property owners.

Spring has traditionally been a time when sellers choose to sell a home, taking advantage of a seasonal increase in both warmer weather and buyer activity.

We have seen over the past few years that a lack of properties coming to market has aided price growth during the period of falling interest rates and now underpinning prices as interest rates climb.

Over the past 12 months we have repeatedly been told about the looming mortgage cliff in Australia.

It has been spoken about continuously since interest rates began to rise early last year.

Last week, Australia's largest lender announced that we are now entering a period whereby $52 Billion in mortgages will need to be refinanced at much higher rates between now and December 31st.

For the second month in a row, the Reserve Bank of Australia has chosen to leave the cash rate on hold at 4.1%.

Whilst this is the same outcome that followed the RBA's July meeting, last week's decision and the future outlook appears vastly different.