London Home Shoppers Using WhatsApp for off-Market Deals
Deep-pocketed London home buyers are increasingly turning to WhatsApp as an unconventional way to make property deals outside of the traditional open market. The proportion of off-market home sales in London reached a record high of 22.3% in the final quarter of 2022, according to estate agent Hamptons. “Sellers have been increasingly looking to test pricing quietly without leaving a digital footprint, particularly if they chose to take their home off the market with a view to trying again in 6 or 12 months’ time,” said Hamptons senior analyst David Fell. CNBC
Property on Australia’s Best Beach Is Affordable but Hard to Come By
Stokes Bay, a quiet stretch of coastline on Kangaroo Island, in South Australia, has been crowned by Tourism Australia as the country’s best beach of the year. A typical house on the island commands a median price of A$1.695 million (US$1.19 million) but in secluded Stokes Bay an almost 83-acre parcel of land with sweeping ocean views is currently available for A$890,000. While property on Stokes Bay is affordable, it’s hard to come by, said agent Michael Barrett of Century 21 Kangaroo Island. “This is the kind of place where people hold onto properties for generations,” he said. “That land I’m selling has been in the same family for 40 years.” Domain
Chinese Buyers Set to Head to Dubai
Dubai’s property market is about to get an influx of Chinese buyers who have been absent from the market amid the Covid pandemic and resulting travel restrictions. Driven Properties, a Dubai-based company with offices in China, handled more than AED 64 million (US$17.4 million) in Dubai property sales to Chinese buyers in January and said that number barely “scratched the surface” of transactions expected. “We are positive about Chinese investments coming back and that is what is giving me hope that the 2023 market will still be strong,” said Abdullah Alajaji, chief executive of Driven Properties. “We believe that China is the new Russia. By far the largest group of investors now are Russians and buyers from Europe.” The National
Seattle Housing Market Cooling Fast Amid U.S. Slowdown
U.S. home prices saw their slump extend for the fifth consecutive month in November, according to the latest data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller. Prices fell 0.3% between October and November, and dropped 2.5% from June’s peak. The Seattle-area property market was one of the fastest-cooling in the nation. Home prices in the Emerald City dropped 1.5% from October to November. Compared to a year earlier, meanwhile, Seattle prices were still up 1.5%, but that was the smallest year-over-year jump of the 20 cities ranked in the report. Seattle Times
