Real Estate

The cooling property market has resulted in the creation of an acronym, FOOP, fear of over paying. A year ago, people turned up to auctions and waving their arms in the air prepared to pay any amount of money to purchase a property through fear of missing out (FOMO). We were seeing crazy things happening at auctions. Now, things are vastly different.

We are being inundated with people wanting to borrow money through their SMSFs to purchase farms and other types of properties with land that include commercial ventures so they can live on the properties and work the businesses. There are strict rules around what you can purchase with your SMSF, but there is more flexibility when it comes to farms.

Cushman & Wakefield (NYSE: CWK), a global commercial real estate services firm, has acquired Sheffield Property (WA) Pty Ltd. and Sheffield Asset Management Pty Ltd., a reputable office leasing and property management agency based in Perth, Western Australia. The acquisition further strengthens Cushman & Wakefield’s well established and full service commercial real estate platform across Australia and the Asia Pacific region.

Homebuyers need to be more vigilant than ever as real estate agents and sellers work harder to sell properties for maximum dollar in 2022. Despite inflationary pressures properties will still achieve good gains in some areas as long as their fundamentals are sound. Good properties that are well located with solid features will continue to do well however properties that carry inherent issues such as the wrong aspect, bad outlook, busy street or building issues will find it harder to sell in the 2022 market. Real estate agents will turn to clever little dirty tricks to try and hide concerning problems so as to offload properties.

CalTier Realty, a proptech company aiming to provide investors with the chance to build wealth with real estate investment openings, has launched its $5m Reg CF investment raise. The disruptive fintech investment platform from CalTier Realty provides offerings for real estate funds to over 5,000 users and unparalleled access to commercial real estate investment regardless of investor experience or starting wealth level.

The Association of Professional Builders (APB), a business coaching service for custom home builders, with members in the U.S, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, announced the findings from its annual State of Residential Construction Industry (SORCI) Report for 2022. The research report, compiled annually, surveys hundreds of residential home builders operating in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The sponsors for this report include Buildertrend, CBUSA, Buildxact, Xact Accounting and Builda Price.  

CubiCasa, a global-reaching real estate software company, has announced a partnership with Bladescenes, a creative marketing agency for real estate located in Auckland, New Zealand. This partnership marks a notable boost to CubiCasa's ongoing expansion into the Australian and New Zealand real estate markets, accelerating the global growth of its mobile property scanning technology.

Stimulus measures such as the HomeBuilder Scheme did bring forward the buying decisions, but they remain active in the market, even after last year’s strong property price growth. Compared to the period prior to the pandemic, new loan commitments to owner occupier first home buyers are at their highest level since October 2009, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistic Lending Indicators for December 2021. 

They don’t make land anymore and for first-time buyers, young families and downsizers, they all want a home with some land attached so the family can gather and the kids play. Retirees who move out of their large family home into a smaller home, also want to keep enjoying all the benefits of having a garden to potter around in. Having access to a garden is now one of the most important things people are looking for in a home.

Experienced Chief Technology Officer and successful start-up founder Brendan Leonard has joined FrontYa, Australia’s first-to-market private-sector deposit booster. FrontYa, a data and AI-driven proptech which provides purchasing funds to qualified buyers in exchange for a share in a property’s future increase in value, recently closed Australia’s largest pre-seed investment round.