Facetime inspections a factor.

NT News 16 Oct 2020
RAPHAELLA SAROUKOS

 

TOP End real estate agents are experiencing multiple instances of interstate buyers purchasing properties in Darwin after doing inspections over Facetime, amid a surge in unit sales.

A DARWIN unit has been sold to a Victorian man who saw the property via Facetime 10 minutes before the open inspection and decided to make an offer.

Number 2/7 Brewery Place, Woolner, was sold by Real Estate Central sales professional Andrew Harding, who said he’d experienced multiple instances of interstate buyers purchasing properties after doing a Facetime inspection.

“We negotiated a price, he placed a bid in the Openn Negotiation app and it hit the reserve price,” he said.

“Once a buyer has been through on Facetime, after showing them through the property and speaking with them, they usually make up their mind then and there, or after a second Facetime.”

Raine & Horne general manager Glenn Grantham said Facetime viewings were growing in popularity for rentals, with property managers reporting a minimum five requests for inspections via Facetime per day.

Mr Grantham added that unit sales were surging, revealing the agency sold three in one weekend for the first time in almost a decade.

“We haven’t sold three units on a weekend in seven years,” he said.

“If the NT’s COVID recovery continues in the exact same vein, I expect our market over the next 12 months will be heading into a boom cycle.”

Mr Grantham said, surprisingly, there was a market resurgence of the “grey brigade”, retirees with an expendable income moving to the Territory.

“They’re not our traditional market. Over that age group they want to move south, but now they’re looking and going ‘it’s safer in the NT’,” he said.

“It’s a really good sector of the market for the NT … they don’t need a job, they’ve got their own money and they’re bringing it to the Territory.”

First National O’Donoghues residential sales agent Tim Mackenzie said he recently sold two units in Rapid Creek. One was on the market for just 12 hours before selling to a local buyer, and the other went to Adelaide residents relocating to the Territory.

 

Give our GM Glenn Grantham a call to find out why Darwin is such a great place to invest in 2020.

Glenn Grantham
General Manager
Raine & Horne Darwin

08 8941 8941
[email protected].