Acreage Market Wrap - 18th Jan 2019

Hi, my name is Greg Vincent and welcome to this week’s Acreage Market Wrap where I share an insight into How’s The Acreage Market?

Firstly, how good is this rain? It’s been great for our lawns and gardens but it’s such a welcome change for the farmers and their crops, providing water and extra feed for their stock, filling the rainwater tanks & dams across the district and much needed relief for the firefighters and a boost for the bush and our wildlife.

One of my mates up on his farm in Queensland woke up this morning with 67mm in the rain gauge & water in the dams. In 1 day they’ve had a quarter of the rain that fell in all of 2019. The rain is being welcomed everywhere across the country.

OK. So ‘How is The Acreage Market?’ ...Well, there are currently 373 acreage properties for sale across the region, with 205 in The Hawkesbury, 117 For Sale in The Hills and 49 in the North Western acreage areas of Blacktown & Penrith.

So far this month there have been 5 acreage properties sold with another 14 currently Under Offer throughout the region with a lot more new acreage listings expected to come onto the market later this month, along with a lot more sales activity anticipated.

With only 5 sales recorded so far in January, this is very typical for this time of year as many Solicitors have only just come back from their Christmas Holidays for the sales contracts to go through.

In fact, the market is a lot more active than these figures suggest. For example, we held the first Open Homes for 2 properties today one at 7 Everett Place, Annangrove and the other one at 197 Willeroo Drive, Windsor Downs and with a total of 17 groups through I’m currently in negotiations with buyers for both of these properties.

Competition is definitely coming back into the acreage market, however, after the recent bushfires I’ve sensed that some buyers have become a bit nervous about making a tree change, but, this hesitation should lessen over the coming weeks and months.

Speaking of the bushfires, now that the recovery efforts are swinging into action it’s been incredible to see so many incredible initiatives currently urging people to support the fire-affected regions, with help coming from all corners of the globe.

Bilpin was one of the worst affected areas for us locally and the locals are now urging people to come back by promoting that Bilpin is Open for Business and as a new initiative to get people to come and visit the area a #BackToBilpin hashtag was set up and has been widely promoted across Social Media sites & within 24 hours people came out in large numbers to help this community get back on their feet.

Also, a group from Hawkesbury Equestrian have driven a horse float filled with horse riding gear down to the South Coast to help people down there get back in the saddle. Plus, there’s so much other relief happening like Mattress for a Mate, Wildlife drinking towers being donated to Friends of Hawkesbury Wildlife and in an unprecedented show of unity, the real estate industry has united together with the ‘Beyond The Bricks’ initiative and already over $600,000 has been raised.

In other real estate news, Domain.com.au reported this week that the Sydney Metro Has Dramatic Increase To Buyer Activity And Property Values with the online property searches for suburbs along the Metro Northwest increasing by as much as 37 per cent compared to a 4 per cent increase across the other Sydney suburbs. Rouse Hill has experienced the largest increase of 37.8 per cent which should have a positive flow-on effect into the nearby acreage market.

Also, this week I’ve sent out nearly 100 copies of the Summer edition of The Acreage Report 2020 if you haven't grabbed a copy of it already, make sure you get in touch with me or visit www.TheAcreageReport.com.au or my blog to get your copy now. It's packed full of great insights into exactly what's happening in the acreage market in The Hills, Hawkesbury and Sydney's North West.

So there you have it. That’s this week’s Acreage Market Wrap.

If you have any questions about anything I’ve mentioned in this video or would like to discuss any of your acreage plans with me, don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Have a great week everyone. Bye for now.

Regards

Greg Vincent