Residz Team 3 min read
“Should I sell my house now?”
A lot of Australian would-be home sellers are in a dilemma. ‘Should I sell my house now?’ is a question that has seen a massive spike in searches on Google.
The number of Australian homeowners who’ve asked or typed “Should I sell my house now?” has jumped 53% in the past year, and is up 24% in just the past three months.
As you know, we all rely on Google as something of a sage, or wise old owl. When we want a question answered, we’re more likely to type it into Google (or shout it into our phone) than we are to ask our friends and family.
So, it’s interesting that Google shows the average number of monthly searches for “Should I sell my house now” is 170 searches a month, and the similar search query “Should you sell your house now?” is also up 300% year on year.
These clearly are not the homeowners affected by the four Ds that can add pressure to sell.
Other popular questions that Australians are asking Google right now are:
Worry about interest rates
These ponderings by the public aren’t unexpected, given the recent realestate.com.au Residential Consumer Omnibus survey found one in two property owners are worried about interest rate rises.
The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has lifted the cash rate to 1.85%, dampening the real estate market considerably.
Recent CoreLogic data shows that, nationally, home values are already falling at the fastest pace since the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), while Sydney values are declining at the fastest pace since at least the early 1980s.
And, more interest rate rises are expected before the end of the year.
‘Sell my house’ is down Year on Year
It all suggests there are plenty of would-be sellers spending their time on Google, waiting out the current slump in the hope of better prices sometime in the future. The term ‘Sell my house’ is down 45% from the numbers a year ago. ‘How do I sell my house?’ is down even further, with 67% fewer searches for this question than there were a year ago. ‘Ways to sell a house’ and ‘Best way to sell a house’ are both down 50%.
This might signal a shift in priorities. Perhaps there’s a clue in some of the search terms that are soaring on Google, such as:
This indicates many of us are feeling restless and unsettled after the pandemic, and we are aware there are more choices about whether to buy or sell our homes, stay put or travel, and how we live our lives and work more generally.
So, should you sell your house now?
At the end of the day, you have to do what is right for you.
Experienced auctioneer Scott Kennedy-Green points out that a good real estate sales result in his books is when you get or pay a fair price, and where your transaction has allowed you to move forward with your life.
“It’s the bringing together of buyer and seller, both ready, willing, and able to do the deal, which is at the heart of a good real estate sale,” he says.
This fits with a recent statement by Andy Webb on the Open Agent website.
“Even if the market feels a bit uncertain, it’s important to remember that it’s all relative and the market doesn’t stop. There will always be properties being listed and buyers out there wanting to purchase a home.
It's also crucial to recognise that conditions will vary from suburb to suburb, so it’s important to understand your own local market - and to do that, you really need to get granular.” - Andy Webb, Open Agent, May 2022.
Residz can help buyers and sellers reduce the stress: