Local Market Update

We thought February was a great month and a good indication for a strong year ahead however March has surpassed our expectations in every respect with the culmination of the increased buyer activity since the start of 2013 finally spilling over to create massive activity and some amazing results.

March saw the team at Ray White Cranbourne set some new and very positive records and ones that will have ripple effects for months to come.

The sales team set a new benchmark with over 60 new listings for the month. This smashed the previous best of low 50’s set in the same month last year. The standout contributors were the Ringeri team, Peter Khamis and Kate Rushton. Solid numbers were achieved by the rest of the team too. This renewed confidence in the market by vendors has been fuelled by the positive media reports over the last month. This combined with the record low interest rates and the great buyer enquiry numbers has seen the activity of previous months translate to increased sales and listing activity.

The sales team was also very busy with close to 40 sales for the month. This tracks above the activity of the same time last year. One of our newer team members Malcolm Whiston was the stand out with sales activity for the month selling 6 and as always the Ringeri team was very strong. Open home numbers and overall buyer enquiry numbers were still very good and this month we again saw many examples of multiple offer situations. Buyer confidence is definitely on a high and we expect this to continue for the foreseeable future.

Our rental department saw a contracting of available stock during the month of March as the number of available properties in the market reduced and choices for tenants were reduced. This resulted in many current tenants remaining in their current properties and in some cases even accepting a rent increase rather than move on. This is in stark contrast to previous months where tenants would happily move on to a newer, bigger or better priced property due to the large amount of available stock in the marketplace. Rent increases were a prominent part of the month with good signs for landlords as the available stock is being rented and supply and demand are evening out.

March also saw the annual Ray White awards in which Ray White Cranbourne featured very prominently. The office was awarded the number one office for number of sales for the year and also placed number three for commission earned. This was a PB result and a jump from 6th place last year. We also had a number of individual award winners and nominations with Paul Ringeri coming in at 6th place for individual salespeople and Matt Ringeri winning the sales assistant of the year award. Josh Bartlett won lending manager of the year. Nominations were also received for Chaminda Gunasekara and Charles Raj for rising star of the year in sales and Maree Gladstone and Lizzy Maddaluno for property manager and rising star in property management awards. Overall it was a great result for the year for the whole team.