What happened to the Markets in December?

What happened to the Markets in December?

By Brian White, Chairman - Ray White Group. Ray White is the largest property company in Australasia.

Ray White in December nudged ahead of December 2010. People often get surprised when big numbers are achieved in the December month due to the gaps in number of working days. But there is often a rush, which happened again last year, to successfully complete the negotiations on so many of the properties that were part of our Spring marketing campaign. Nothing exemplifies this better than our Double Bay office result which exceeded $50m in unconditional sales - remarkable how the prospect of year end brings sales to fruition.

Whatever. More proof that the recent reduction in interest rates is continuing to lift activity, giving confidence to purchasers that a continuing fear of more rate rises will not eventuate. Thus our December result at $2.1b when adjusted to a sales-per-working-day comes out to be even better than our excellent November result.

More promising omens for 2012.

The brightest market spot? New Zealand was up 40 per cent. West Australia had a 26 per cent lift on December 2010. Could it be that the Perth market has begun following its eastern state cousins? These increases are big numbers.

Our new Hotels division sold a portfolio of hotels to Woolworths Ltd for $320m. Our research shows that this was the major transaction by a real estate group for 2011 - a tremendous achievement to Andrew Jolliffe and Tony Bargwanna who head up this new business.

Our Rural results were the best for 12 months.

Confidence supporting the acquisition of quality commercial property continues and resulted in a strong December for our specialist network.

Our Loan Market result just missed $600m in approved loans, making it the second best month on record. More proof in the emerging underlying confidence within our communities.

What's new at Ray White?

The Group's prime residential focus in January, as usual, will be on the Gold Coast where our Surfers Paradise group, alone, will auction over 150 properties in their now famous 'The Event' to be held on the last weekend in January. Already they have recorded hundreds of inspections and it's become the Gold Coast's most celebrated property event. Together with our other Gold Coast businesses, the latest edition of the Gold Coast Bulletin has the appearance of being printed within a Ray White office!! There is nothing similar to this anywhere in the country.

Of particular note is the prominence of Michael Willems and his team. Michael began his career with Ray White 18 years ago and gradually has become one of our most successful professional performers with a presence that is truly remarkable - an inspiration to all other members in our network.

The success of our Hotels division has encouraged us to further expand their operation with a planned advisory team which will commence shortly. This will provide added depth to one of our great success stories of 2011.

More sizeable earthquake tremors in Christchurch was not the Christmas message they wanted. But the resolution of their residents continues to be remarkable. Ray White's Tony MacPherson, who owns one of the biggest businesses in that city, commented 'We are here for the duration. The last year has proved what an important centre it is and we're continuing to make sales as we speak'.

The Group turns into the new year with new offices opening in Kuala Lumpur and some other markets in Asia. More details as the year goes on.

What is, perhaps, remarkable are the plans of Roy Saker to open further offices in Beirut. In addition, Roy plans to visit Australia in February to present an update of market opportunities in that region directly to Australians.

2011 was a challenge to everyone. We are proud of our Group's resolve to positively respond and, as so often happened, to seize positive opportunities that arose.

We thank our many clients and supporters who enabled our Group to achieve market share growth in 2011.

END

© Scoop Media