Seeya II

Last night, as I watched my new favourite sitcom, "Selling Houses Australia," it really dawned on me how bad things can potentially get. It seems it's repeat week on the Lifestyle Channel at the moment, so it's a perfect time for a catch up marathon in the zany financial predicaments of Trev Beerslab (kudos to whoever thought of that name) and his long suffering wife, Sharon.

Each episode has Trev completely befuddled on why his house has languished on the market for months without anything but an insulting, but highly realistic, low ball offer. Last night found Trev scratching his arse for a year with only one offer. Sure you're probably thinking, "Ol' Trev didn't need to sell so there was no rush."

Au contraire, Trev had a mega mortgage on the current house, a business loan and another loan on a block he was intending to build on - with a ticking time-bomb contract. He frankly admitted business had been tough and if it wasn't for an earlier good run, they'd be broke - perfect time to build a bigger house eh?

Sharon Beerslab, in one of her more nuanced moments, said the price and presentation wasn't the problem - they just needed the right people to come along. Kind of like that shiny thing on the back of my head not being a bald spot - it's the part in my hair.

Mortgage stress, a faltering business and a ticking time-bomb, in the form of an impending building contract. There was the sense these fools would actually go broke on principle, rather than accept less for their house - or maybe that thing behind them was the corner - which is even worse. The more you witness people clinging to yesterday's price, or being super glued to it through their stupid financial decisions, the more you realise how bad this carnage can be.

Trev and Sharon will be slouched in front of the plasma, fingers in their ears, as the market crumbles around them. Yet the market won't apply to them, their house is special, they're immune because the right buyer is still out there. Then, as the clock nears midnight, in a Jim Beam and Coke fuelled haze, Trev will have a revelation that they are well and truly screwed. He'll ring the agent at 12.05 am, screaming at him to drop the price before it's too late.

And yeah, by that stage, it's way too late.

And speaking of late, it's time for me to furnish you with another of my woeful graphs. These figures are unfortunately twenty days old as I found myself blowharding over issues I shouldn't really be talking about, but if the stats aren't relevant, feel free to point it out.

So here's Launceston in the same vein as this post, me embarking on the thankless lunacy of hunting down empty and rental listings currently for sale.

 

 

Same deal as last time, only across one city. As you can see, the unoccupied dwellings for sale in Launceston stood at 21.4% on November 1. The rental properties for sale in Launceston stood at 16.3% on the same date. If you don't want to add up, that's a grand total 37.7% of properties listed for sale in Launceston, either being empty or rentals.

The most fascinating thing to note? How many of the unoccupied properties had the selling point of, "previously tenanted at X dollars a week." In the rental area, it wasn't uncommon to see the end date of the lease being quoted and quite often that date was soon.

Somebody, or many bodies, want out. Like I've previously mentioned, the smart investors are quietly trying to sneak away and the dumb ones, who entered late, have suddenly smartened up and are cutting their losses. 

There's an avalanche headed directly for Mr and Mrs Beerslab, but they won't move, they'll be buried and then we'll listen to the torturous calls for the government to strap on a barrel of brandy and play St.Bernard.

Better make that a barrel of Jim Beam and don't forget the coke.