Lies, Damned Lies and Housing Statistics 2
I promise this is a more succint post than the last one! Interesting to see that the REIV had to 'revise' the paltry Melbourne auction clearance rates last week because a number of agents had failed to report 'unsuccessful' results. This highlights the flaw with so much of Australia's housing statistics - they are dependent on real estate agent voluntary reporting of information. It's like asking a punter to determine the photo finish of a horse race!
In a similar vein I could only laugh at Brisbane's auction results today. Reporting a clearance rate of 8% (or 2 properties sold out of the 21 auctioned), one property sold for $930k prior to auction (denoted "SP"), and the other is denoted "SN" indicated sold prior, price undisclosed. Why would you try to sell a house in Brisbane via an auction on these numbers... but perhaps more importantly why would anyone have faith in any of these statistics?
The REIV had to revise their clearance rate for the weekend just been again, revised by the same amount as the weekend prior (61% down to 59%). I have been tracking the REIV stats on a spreadsheet, it's been interesting to see that unreported number continue to grow over the months. Early in the year we saw that unreported number at around 7-9% of all auctions, more recently that number has been around 12-14%...coincidence? I think not.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog, enjoying your Aussie housing analysis.