Mildura home demand defies data dip, say property agents

THE property market in north-west Victoria remains one of the hottest in the land, although some figures show signs of the price boom cooling in Mildura.

Leading property data company CoreLogic’s latest figures for the region show that housing values increased by 13.4 per cent over the past year.

Nearly half the growth came in the past three months.

The median property value in north-west Victoria is now $277,876, below the average of $320,502 in Mildura.

Nationally, housing values lifted 1.8 per cent in April, with the monthly pace of capital gains easing from a 32-year high in March (2.8 per cent).

According to CoreLogic, dwelling values in Mildura fell 1 per cent last month – still up 8 per cent over the past 12 months.

But local real estate agents say the slight dip in Mildura’s housing values is not being reflected on the ground as many properties are being snapped up within a week of hitting the market.

Collie & Tierney First National director Ben Ridley puts the fall down to fewer sales “in the high end of the market”.

“I can only see two residential sales registered above $600,000 for Mildura for April, which is quite low compared to even what we have done as a company each month over the last six to 12 months,” Mr Ridley said.

“In fact, both of those sales were ours, at $705,000 and $692,000, and then the next highest being $580,000.”

He said property sales across Sunraysia had been “incredibly steady” in 2021.

“We certainly haven’t seen a drop-off in demand in the 3500 postcode,” Mr Ridley said.

“Our average days for time on market for the month of April came through at 18.4 days. It’s some of the old stock that drags that average out. Much of the new stock in not lasting seven days on market.

“And we were just over $406,000 for our average sale price in April.

“We’re getting above expected prices nine out of every 10 times, so we might have to start looking at how we price properties.

“I recently had a subdivision (in Irymple) where we sold out a whole stage of land without it going to market.”

Barry Plant Mildura co-director Tense Venneri said he was surprised about CoreLogic’s latest data for Mildura, “because that’s not what we’re seeing”.

“The local real estate industry is still flying,” Mr Venneri said. “It’s the stock shortage that is holding us back from even further growth.

“Over the past three months, we’ve been selling many properties within seven to 10 days of them being listed.

“The offers have been coming in strong early and the competition is still fierce, where you’re not dealing with one or two buyers, but there are now three to six people competing for the purchase.

“Mildura South, Irymple and Nichols Point are still the hot spots for property sales. But the likes of Red Cliffs and Merbein are going along fine with their gains.”

Mr Venneri said the majority of buyers for the properties his company listed were local.

“It’d be comfortably 80 per cent,” he said.

“These people are upsizing, downsizing and investing. Other people, from places like Melbourne and Ballarat, are mainly looking to Mildura to invest in our market.

“Even though our property prices have gone up, the value is still here.”