I hope the Easter Bunny brings cheer into your lives and that you are having a great long weekend, despite what your partner may want you to do around the home. I suggest a weekend off from the job jar - I don’t know about you, but I need some fresh air and open spaces to get my mind off the negative news we are surrounded by at the moment.
In my search for positives, I picked up this up in an FNB Estate Agents Survey: “Estate agents did not perceive further slowing in housing demand in the first quarter of 2019. Their average estimate for ‘serious viewers per show house prior to sale’ was 9.97 viewers per show house, virtually the same as the estimate of the prior quarter.
“The average time of homes on the market moved sideways at 15 weeks and three days from 15 weeks and six days in 4Q18, putting a brake on a broadly rising trend since the end of 2015.
“Nevertheless, agents perceived market activity to have picked up in the first quarter of 2019, the second successive quarter of improvement.
“The agents’ Residential Activity rating (scale of 1 to 10) registered 5.85 from 5.27 at the end of 2018, consistent with a slight reduction in the time that a property is on the market.”
It might be coincidence but I have noticed an increase in the number of “for sale” signs outside properties recently. So, if you are interested in selling your home, perhaps my opening remarks should be ignored and you should get busy sprucing up the house instead of enjoying the long weekend.
Make sure you do a proper job. There is little that puts a potential buyer off more than seeing half-hidden problems when inspecting a home.
* If you have a question for Don, please send it to [email protected] or SMS only to 0824463859.