A report predicts that Bermagui will likely to be one of Australia's strongest property markets this year. Do local estate agents agree?
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The Well Money Green Shoots report published last week assessed Australia's housing and unit markets on three metrics:
- Inventory levels decreasing over the last three months, as measured by how long it would take to sell all the houses in that particular market;
- Median days on market decreasing over the past three months; and
- Median asking price of all the houses listed in a particular location.
Based on the best combination of those three metrics, the report concluded that Bermagui would be the sixth-strongest market in Australia and the third best in NSW.
It predicted that Pambula would rank 15th in the state.
Julie Rutherford, principal of Julie Rutherford Real Estate in Bermagui, said median prices in a market as small as Bermagui can be skewed significantly by some sales of really high-priced homes.
Her colleague Mick Butterfield added that asking prices were not selling prices.
Mr Butterfield said there was currently a two-tier market where realistically-priced houses were selling very quickly which is why "days on the market stay low".
However, other properties remain for sale much longer because the asking price was above the actual market value.
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Far South Coast's position being reset
Robert Tacheci, proprietor of Marshall and Tacheci, made similar points about the report's methodology.
However he said the Far South Coast, and Bermagui in particular, was undergoing a readjustment similar to what Byron Bay experienced the 1990s.
"From time to time areas get readjusted where they sit in the national market and we are seeing this now in the Far South Coast," Mr Tacheci said.
"This often happens not with rapid price growth during the up phase, but with prices holding up during the down phase, as happened in Byron Bay in the early 1990s."
Mr Tacheci has been predicting this for a long time.
"I was concerned that markets couldn't go on as they had been, but I felt Bermagui would go down less as we have limited supply," he said.
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Further insulating the Bermagui market against a substantial drop in value is that it is now on the radar of many more wealthy people than previously, translating to a significant rise in demand in the small market.
"There has been a large amount of people who have suddenly discovered this area and they are coming from areas where house prices have previously boomed substantially," Mr Tacheci said.
He said there was still a very large price gap between what wealthy Baby Boomers were selling their homes for in the cities, and properties in Bermagui.
While the national property market is definitely softening, "there is enough increase in demand in Bermagui to compensate for a different attitude in the market", he said.
Monet masterpiece on the South Coast
One spectacular home four kilometres from the centre of Bermagui is a case in point.
Mr Tacheci described Nerimbah as a beautifully executed home that has received a great deal of care from its owners along with architect Alan Ray and builder Andy Austin, and been developed over the years.
"It is a staggering piece of coastland with majestic cliff tops and a little beach, along which the 14-hectare property's boundary runs, which is very rare."
Built around 20 years ago, it was "outstanding quality, but not ostentatious".
On our first visit, as I stood on the ancient yellow cliff looking out on the ocean, I felt an overwhelming sense of the beauty and power of place, and it dawned on me what a privilege it would be to live in Nerimbah.
- Cecilia Ng, current owner of Nerimbah
"People connect with the beauty," he said. "Obviously you need a lot of money, but the appraisal was on a different level.
"This whole level of intangible value, they become more like a piece of art. It is like Monet's Water Lilies of the South Coast."
Nerimbah is currently under negotiation at a price "significantly beyond" the $11million cited in Marshall and Tacheci's marketing material.
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