At the recent Ray White Canberra Awards night, the team from Belconnen and Gungahlin scooped the pools, securing the Top 2 positions in the Residential Agency category, Top position in Number of Transactions, and our team securing 2 of the 6 much coveted Values awards for their broader contribution and achievements across the Ray White group.

“It was a great night for the team” said Ray White Canberra CEO Doug O’Mara “Securing positions 1 & 2 on the agency ladder despite only two years in operation is a great testament to the skill, dedication and hard work of that team.”

“What is even more exciting for this particular business is that there are a number of future leaders who are all starting to come through the ranks”

“Particularly rewarding was Sue’s efforts in establishing our rental business on the Northside. She has worked tirelessly, and her award is very much deserved.

Awards Winners

Ray White Value award for Success	Sue Grant
Ray White Value award for Professionalism	Scott Jackson
Top Agent – Transactions	Ben Faulks
Top 10 - Residential Agent of the Year	Sam Faulks
Runner-up - Residential Agent of the Year	Scott Jackson
Winner- Residential Agent of the Year	Ben Faulks

 

All award winners were extremely grateful to have been recognised, and we would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our much valued clients for their ongoing support.

Community Update

Ray White Belconnen & Gungahlin have also taken on our next physical challenge, with two teams entered in the Camp Quality Verti-cool challenge. This event involves scaling the 403 steps of Black Mountain Tower in an effort to raise funds for Camp Quality. You can help support Camp Quality by donating at http://www.mycampquality.org.au/page.aspx?pid=398&tab=0&frsid=285.

You must also have come across one of our Sales Associates helping out Canberra’s homeless and disadvantaged by participating in ‘The Big Issue Challenge’, which pitted a team of 5 agents competing against Auctioneers and Agents in other states to see who could sell the most Big Issues within 40 minutes. The team feature Ray White Belconnen & Gungahlin Agents Ali Keele, Kunal Kumar and Jake Battenally, and the team came a highly credible third place.

More than anything though, the challenge was a very grounding experience as the whole team realised what a battle it is for these guys to try and make ends meet. Overall though, the event was a great success with all proceeds going to the Big Issue sellers themselves.

Canberra Market update – February 2012

As a final point we have include a brief market update below to keep you all in the loop with what’s happening in the Canberra market.

Moving into what has been historically been moving season for the Nation’s capital, we have been anxiously waiting the impact of the Reserve Bank’s much anticipated downward movement on interest rates in the months leading up to Christmas which have left us working with historic lows.

And while we are yet to see these rate rises flow through to higher housing prices, we have been pleased to see an increase in buyer enquiry in the early months of 2012, with higher open home numbers evident across the board, indicating some renewed interest in the ACT Property market after a tough finish to 2011.

All things considered 2011 was a tough year for the property market, with CBRE reporting a fall in house prices around the country of 4.8%. For the first time in many years Canberra wasn’t immune to this hit, and came off by 2.6%. On the positive side this was still less than the national average, however also needs to be considered in the context of the current balance of supply and demand.

According to preliminary allhomes.com data, the total number of property sales for 2011 was the lowest on record. Compared with previous years, the approximate 7,000-7,500 total sales during the calendar year was by far the lowest, with 1998 recording the next lowest level at 9,000. We believe this is a direct result of uncertainty in the global marketplace meaning buyers are less prepared to make offers, and also vendors not being in a position to accept that their home may be worth less now than it was 12 months ago.

At the same time as we have had a decrease is transactions (a result of reduced demand), we continue to see green field sites erupting in Molonglo and Gungahlin, placing increased supply into an already swollen market. The cascading effect of such a low number of sales during 2011 is that there are a large number of properties that are typically absorbed in the preceding calendar year competing with new homes onto the market in 2012.

Locally there remains good interest in the sub $500,000 market in most areas with first home buyers still providing the majority of enquiry to those markets. The downsizer market seems to be increasing in line with our ageing population, and if we get further interest rate cuts and further falls in prices we expect to see investors back in force in the very near future.

The upper end market in Greenfield areas in Gungahlin remains the laggard, with listings in the new home markets of Crace, Forde, Bonner, Casey & Springbank Rise still sitting at well over 500 properties and giving buyers plenty to choose from.

However the Canberra marketplace continues to be well placed on a national level in terms of employment and wages, and whilst SQM Research are reporting that the vacancy rate within the Canberra rental market increased upwards to be 0.9% in December (which we note is typically the seasonal peak in vacancy rates), rental properties are still flying out the door as quickly as we can list them. We believe these factors should continue to underpin house prices in the short term, although any negative developments out of the Eurozone have the potential to quickly change that position.

So from our perspective moving season is definitely underway, and yielding higher levels of buyer enquiry than we have seen for many months.