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The PROPERTY DOCTORS, Sydney Australia Novak Properties
NOVAK NEWS - QUARTER 1 REAL ESTATE WRAP OF 2025: TOP SALES, HOT SUBURBS & WHAT'S NEXT FOR Q2
Join Thomas Sims and Jonathan Vescio live as they dissect the first quarter of 2025 in the real estate world. Discuss top sales, hot suburbs, and what's next for Quarter 2!The Australian property market is showing fascinating movement in early 2025, with significant disparities between houses and apartments across the Northern Beaches and Lower North Shore. We've analyzed every sale, tracked every trend, and compiled comprehensive insights on what's driving these changes.
Palm Beach and Whale Beach have emerged as the quarter's star performers with an astonishing 18.5% growth for houses, despite limited stock with just 11 sales recorded. Meanwhile, Narrabeen surprised everyone with 5.7% growth, signaling shifting buyer preferences. The affordability factor continues to drive interest in the Belrose/Frenchs Forest area, where houses have seen 4% growth and apartments a remarkable 10% increase, as buyers seek modern living spaces without the premium coastal price tag.
The luxury market continues to break records, with Manly's Bower Street witnessing a jaw-dropping $22 million sale in just four days, while Mosman's apartment market topped out at $15 million for a spectacular penthouse in "The Castle." These sales establish new benchmarks that will influence surrounding property values throughout 2025. The current buyer's market presents genuine opportunities, but we predict a rapid shift post-election as interest rate cuts increase borrowing capacity and unleash pent-up demand. With housing affordability concerns persisting and international economic factors creating uncertainty, timing your next property move becomes crucial.
Whether you're considering selling into the coming boom or looking to secure your next home before prices escalate further, reach out to us at Novak Properties. Our on-the-ground insights can help you navigate these dynamic market conditions and position yourself for success in what promises to be an exciting second quarter.
Hi guys, it's Thomas Sims and Jonathan Vescio here at Novak Properties with Monday night's Novak News, where we're talking about quarter one real estate wrap of 2025, which includes top sales, hot suburbs and what's next for quarter two. Stay tuned. Good evening, everyone. Good evening. Hope you're well. Jonathan, how are you going? Yeah, good, good. How are you? I'm good, good to be back.
Speaker 2:I haven't been in here for a while. Last time we were here, we spoke about what the market did last year and what we thought it was going to do this year. So we're here to do another little wrap up. For you guys that don't really follow the real estate market too closely, we're here to give you a bit of an insight on what's happening in the background. Happening in the background Yep, that's right.
Speaker 1:So what we're looking at this evening is the wrap-up of the first quarter of 2025. So everything from the 1st of January to the 31st of March, and that's going to include what suburbs have performed really well. It's also going to include some top sales that we've seen in the Northern Beaches and the Lower North Shore, mossman area as well, and then our predictions as well to what will happen in quarter two, so that's April to June in 2025. We're going to split it up into houses and apartments to make things, you know, a little bit separated for everyone and we're not mixing up, you know, every single property all into one little fax sheet. So Jonathan's going to do houses this evening.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll kick us off with houses. Starting off with, the best performing in terms of growth is Palm Beach and Whale Beach. So we've seen an 18.5% growth in the quarter in comparison to Q4 of last year. I mean reason being probably on why we think anyways, why it's happening in the background is probably because there's a little bit of low stock in terms of what comes on. So, like DY, for example, is a very high performing suburb in terms of lots of turnover, palm Beach we've only seen between Palm Beach, sorry and Whales Beach combined we've only seen 11 sales over the quarter. So that's actually quite good for Palm Beach. Whale Beach Typically it's less than that, but we've seen quite a few sales happening there. But the growth there is doing really well at 18.5%.
Speaker 2:Coming in second is Narrabeen, at 5.7%, which is a bit of surprise to me. I don't't really follow the narrow bean market. We don't do too much in narrow bean. We do the occasional, but 5.7% is really good for narrow bean and it's there's been 10 sales in there in the last quarter as well. So they've done really well in terms of growth.
Speaker 2:So, everybody living in Narrabeen, you've done really well there in Q1. And you're most likely going to do really well going into Q2 of next year as well. And we're seeing areas like Bellrose, french's Forest that entry-level stock is doing really well over there. You're seeing about a 4% growth over there at Bellrose, french's Forest, kalani Heights kind of area there, french's Forest, killarney Heights kind of area. There Lots of entry-level houses selling at really good prices but they're turning over really well In terms of a lot of people who are living northern beaches close to the beach are struggling to afford a house. You know, close to the beach, dy, for example, a three-bedroom house probably going for two, five to three, whereas if you look out to the Bellrose area you'll probably pick one up in those low two region which is a lot more affordable but you're still close to the beach. So I think it's more based off affordability of living going out towards those areas away from the beach but still being close enough that you get that luxury.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great wrap there. Lots of information as well, yeah, and we're seeing similar things happening with apartments as well. In the first quarter, again, that Bellrose, french's Forest, forestville area has really grown. You've seen, actually, an average growth of about 10% and that's 12 sales of apartments in those areas in the last three months, apartments in those areas in the last three months. And what we've noticed and what we're a part of is new developments that are going on in that forest field davidson, bellrose area, french's forest we've also got new developments, you know commercial, um, commercially as well, which is good. But in terms of apartments, um, we've noticed that buyers are looking for new, like new, luxury apartments but still affordable. Um, we've got our 28 Lockwood um Elrose collection of apartments which we're currently selling. Um, a lot of buyers will be looking to go there and there's lots of, there's lots of you know shops and schools and you know ovals and things in the area that people are looking to live in and can afford to live near, with apartments as well.
Speaker 1:We saw a huge 93% increase in sales in the quarter at Church Point, but that's all due to one sale. So there's not a lot of apartments and a lot of stock in Church Point and there's only been the one sale and it was a sale of new luxury apartments, new developments at Church Point with nice ocean water views. They were sold by Upstate. I believe it was a four bedroom apartment sold for roughly $2.6 million there. But overall we're actually seeing a sort of static behaviour in the market with apartments in comparison to the last quarter. Apartments in the northern beaches and lower North Shore are struggling to maintain that same growth that houses are having and again that's all due to housing affordability. We have recently sold a three-bedroom apartment in DeWy for circa $2 million on Clarence Avenue and with that same money you could purchase a house, like Jono said, in Bellrose three, four, five bedroom houses, which is a lot more affordable for people who have families, people looking for more space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, exactly so I think in terms of apartments they're like Thomas said, they're a bit static at the moment, they're not really doing too. Think in terms of apartments they're like Thomas said, they're a bit static at the moment, they're not really doing too much. In terms of price growth, in the last three months or so Houses have done really well. I'm not sure if that's people looking to move to the beach closer to summer. I'm not sure if that's playing a part on it. But yeah, we're seeing that stock units especially are sitting quite static. That entry level stock's doing okay, um, you know there's little 750 000, one better or um, those investors are picking those up at a good price there and they're still moving um, but you know that kind of 900 000 to 1.5 region is doing is pretty much just sitting still um.
Speaker 1:So it'd be interesting to see what what next quarter holds yeah, so in terms of, in terms of what type of market it is at the moment, after our first quarter wrap-up, I think it's more of a buyer's market, do you agree?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do, I do. I think it's a buyer's market. I've been saying it for about a couple of weeks now. I think it's good for a buyer at the moment, but in saying that, all of this stuff going on in the world outside of Australia at the moment is going to flip it to a seller's market pretty quickly. So if you are out there looking to buy, definitely do reach out, look to get into something quite quickly, because we're predicting that it's probably going to go upwards in terms of both houses and apartments moving forward into the year. So we'll touch on that a little bit later, once we chat about what we're going to do in Q2. But yeah, I think it's going to be interesting. Yeah, we chat about what we're going to do in q2, but um, yeah, I think it's going to be interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, so let's, let's go to our q1 wrap up biggest sale biggest sales.
Speaker 2:Yeah so um, biggest sales for houses um, we found 13 bow street, manly um top sale. Um j, jake and Nathan from the agency did a really good job on that. One Only in four days took out the sale for the quarter at a whopping 22 mil. So obviously stunning house on Bower Street, five bedroom house, immaculate views, beautiful property up there on Bower Street. I mean you can't get much better position than that. That $22 million in four days is a lot of money and they've definitely done well there. So congrats to those guys and congrats to everybody who owns a property in Manly, because you're most likely going to make some money on your property on the back of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very positive for the Manly homeowners. And we'll then shift over to apartments. The biggest, the top apartment sale in the first quarter was in Mossman. It was 6-3 Raglan Street in Mossman. Now that is a four-bed, two-bath, two-car top floor apartment with its own top floor terrace, very open terrace, that in total is 535 square metres, huge split level apartment there. It's actually in the building called the Castle. If you know it, if you know the Mossman area, you'll know that there's a block of apartments there that resembles a castle on one side and the other side has full 360 hard views or the water. It has a private jetty as well that you can access and that was sold by Bo from Atlas for $15 million in February there Very big money, that's a huge, huge price.
Speaker 1:It's a massive price enhancement and that was sold pre-market as well, so that didn't even launch out to the real estate portals like realestatecom and stuff. So really good job there from Beau at Atlas, who we've actually worked with recently as well, yeah, we have.
Speaker 2:Actually, we just did a conjunction there with Atlas.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a we have an honorable mention. I will mention it was actually the seventh biggest sale of the first quarter and that went to our co-sale, lisa Novak and Michael Coombs from Atlas of 99 Muston Street in Mossman, and that sold for $14.6 million over the weekend.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a longer campaign, a lot of work went into that one, but that's saying what's going to happen really in Q2. I mean that gives us a sense, a little bit of a precedence, on what's going to happen in the area. Moving forward, and I think, going into Q2, that higher end market for me personally, I think is going to pick up a little bit. It will be interesting to see what happens, though, with the election and the tariffs that are going on in the background. It'll be interesting to see, kind of, what happens with that market. We all thought it was going to go up, but then this kind of put a little bit of a spin on things, so we're not too sure what's going to happen there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, interesting. So the kind of things that we believe are affecting the market and affecting what's going to happen in the second quarter of this year um is obviously the local elections, um, and, as well as that, the tariffs that mr donald trump um is applying over in the us, which that we had. That again will affect the market, but maybe later in the second quarter rather than right now. But predictions for the next rate cut Jono For Q2?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but predictions for the next rate cuts. Jono For Q2? Yeah, I predict. I reckon it's going to flip to a seller's market, not just yet. I think it's going to be post-election before it flips, but post-election I think we're going to see a quick flip and it's going to start booming is the best way to put it.
Speaker 2:I think the interest rates are probably they're predicting the interest rates are going to come down quite significantly now that the tariffs have been going on over there in America. So I mean, if they drop once, maybe twice more, the market's going to go really well in terms of both buyers and sellers. The borrowing capacity for a buyer is going to be better and easier to maintain and it's going to be easier to grab as well. So I think, moving forward, it's going to do better and easier to maintain and it's going to be easier to grab as well. So I think, moving forward, it's going to do really well for the property market in general. It will be interesting to see what happens post-election. I don't know what. I don't think. I think a lot of people sorry are holding on to what's going to happen then and nobody's really buying too much at the moment, hence why we're seeing a little bit of a hold in those apartments. But I think, moving forward post-election, we're going to see a bit of a spike in the market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with you. I think once that election is decided, everyone in the market both sellers and buyers are going to come out all guns blazing and put their best foot forward as quick as possible, and that will make a significant change to the market. So my honest prediction for 2022, I think houses will continue on their rise. They're doing really well and, as Jono mentioned, the housing affordability is a big contributing factor.
Speaker 1:Um apartments, while we saw quite a steady hold and even slight decrease in the first quarter, I think after elections and um, also there was one more, oh yes, and also with stock, with stocks dropping, um, we tend to see housing and the property market rise. So I think apartments are very due to go up in the next quarter, for Q2, which will just create a really, really hot market for us. It'll keep us busy, that's for sure, but you'll see a lot of people start to invest in their property portfolios and look to actually step forward and buy their first home, or buy their next home, or buy their last home and meet all of us. So, all in all, I think that's a wrap. Is there anything else?
Speaker 2:No, I think that's it from my end. I think we gave a good little insight on what's happening in the background. Both units houses what's happened, what's going to happen in our prediction anyway, nobody really knows, but I mean, we're here on the ground running and seeing it first, so I think we've got a bit of an idea on what we think is going to happen. So that's our prediction. Any questions?
Speaker 1:obviously, feel free to reach out anytime. Um, if you look to buy a cell, obviously let us know. Yeah, thank you guys for watching. Have a good night and we'll see you when we catch you next on monday night's. No back news, that's good.