2021 was an unprecedented year in the real estate sector. After a year of much uncertainty in the market in 2020 due to the rise of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the real estate industry has soared to new heights and has surprised even the most seasoned experts.
In 2021, Brisbane prices jumped a whopping 30.4 percent, forcing the median house price to grow to around $783,000. According to CoreLogic, a typical Brisbane house is now worth about $207,000 more than it was at the beginning of January 2021.
With such big growth in the Australian property market, many are wondering how 2022 will perform and if the real estate industry will see sustained growth, or whether the market will begin to fall again.
Zevesto Property Group’s Director and Senior Sales Agent, Rob Ford, spoke with Ticker’s Adrian Franklin and shared his knowledge and expertise ahead of a bumper year in the real estate sector.
See below for a full transcript of the interview.
ADRIAN FRANKLIN:
So as we know 2021 was a booming year for the real estate sector, particularly in Australia, so what about this year? Will we see a pullback, or will it be full steam ahead? Rob ford is Director of Zevesto property group and senior sales agent he joins us now for some of his expectations. Welcome to ticker news how are you today?
ROB FORD:
Doing well how are you?
ADRIAN FRANKLIN:
Yeah going very well um so tell us perhaps firstly about Zevesto uh you’ve grown since the start of the pandemic I believe which is a good sign, how have things gone over the past what is it two years now since the pandemic started?
ROB FORD:
Yeah so look we were quite surprised actually, initially we thought things were going to slow down, I think a lot of the industry did. As it turns out though just over the last 12 months alone we’ve in fact doubled the size of our team and doubled our revenues as well so you know I think a lot of people are paying attention to the real estate market there’s certainly a lot of interest, volumes are up, prices are up just looking at for example the CoreLogic home value index uh we can actually see that for example in Brisbane prices are up to 30 percent over the last 12 months so, to our surprise you know things didn’t slow down and we’ve taken full advantage of it
ADRIAN FRANKLIN:
Yeah it’s been a good time to own a home that is for sure. Tell us about some of the trends that you’re looking for, we’re early on this year um what are your expectations of what we might see over the next 11 months or so?
ROB FORD:
Sure. I think some of the more obvious ones we’ve seen people moving out of units or out of townhouses. There’s been a lot more demand for homes with a decent size yard, you know there’s a lot of people working from home, a lot of people you know throughout lockdowns there was a lot of people I guess that sort of wish they had a bigger yard, uh but we’re also seeing a trend towards homes that have got home offices um you know dual living for example for um you know people moving back in and having a bit of extra space for the kids moving home. There’s been a bit of disruption with the rental market over that time as well, so I think consolidation of homes has been occurring, but I think the main transit just a bit more space and certainly that home office has been popular.
ADRIAN FRANKLIN:
And tell us about what you’re up to at Zevesto? Of course it’s a big market the real estate one but it is competitive. What’s your focus uh moving forward?
ROB FORD:
Yeah sure, so look we’re expanding our business currently last year in the second half of the year we opened our second office. We’re on track to open another office in the first half of this year and potentially another one later this year, so the plan is to continue to scale our operations. It’s been very much about refining our processes our systems and making sure that we have a scalable business. We’ve introduced a lot of uh innovative new technologies to help us sort of work remotely; DocuSign, 3d virtual tours, all of these things have now sort of changed the game where people often don’t even need to come and visit a property, so we’ve taken full advantage of all of the technology that’s available to us. We’ve made some really unique changes to our business structure as well and that’s part of the reason why we’re looking to open offices quite quickly simply because it’s allowed some of our top people to have a piece of equity in the main business while running their own business as an offshoot so that’s quite innovative in our industry and we believe that’s going to allow us to scale pretty quickly.
ADRIAN FRANKLIN:
Sounds like an exciting time to be in the market and particularly where you’re working. Rob Ford thank you for your time, I’m sure we’ll talk again soon.
ROB FORD:
Thanks for having us, by now.
To speak with Rob to see what your property could be with in the 2022 market, call our office on 3133 3808 or call Rob on 0408 886 547.
