Buyers keen to snap up a slice of Orange

Driving to the OC Life office each morning it has been a common sight of late to see ‘FOR SALE’ pop up one day only to have a “SOLD’ sticker appear the next. Anyone keeping an eye on the Orange property market would have seen a pretty quick turnover of properties these past few weeks and those are just the ones that get listed.

Demand for property in Orange has remained strong these past few years, with the city regularly appearing in lists of most searched real estate destinations. Sales continued even through the weeks of lockdown and according to local agents there are simply more buyers than properties to sell.

“It's mad. Sydney is moving to Orange!” said William Machin Agent Doone Grist.

“A lot of the bigger ticket stuff is going Sydney people who have realised that: ‘a’ they can work from home; ‘b’ they never want to be stuck in Sydney in another lockdown again; and ‘c’ how lucky are we to live in Orange and I think they are all realising that, hey ‘we could do this.’”

Doone said the majority of buyers in her experience have been young families looking to relocated here, whether that be now, or in a few years’ time.

“A few have actually bought now and they are going to sell their houses in Sydney and to rent for a few years and then move here. That is happening a lot as well,” she said.

And there is also strong demand from young buyers looking to get into the property market.

“Anything from $200,000 to $400,000 sells in a day, virtually, and they are all first home owners,” said Doone.

“The listings are scarce at the moment, hence selling very quickly. It is all about supply and demand.”

Michael Wright of Peter Fisher Real Estate agrees that the lack of available stock to sell is the number reason driving the market at the moment.

“Obviously when there is not enough supply, the demand goes up,” said Michael.

But the other reason prices are going up is the lack of good, vacant land to build on, he said.

And so buyers facing long delays before they get into a newly developed estate are looking at other options.

“You can be one and a half - two years before you get your house, so I think that is possibly driving some people to say, you know I don't want to wait that long. Let’s look at what we can buy now,” he said.

Rental properties too are in short supply, which makes Orange even more attractive to investors.

“There is very little to rent. We are running at well under half a percent vacancy and have been for some time. They are renting very quickly after they get put on the market and again that is encouraging people to come forward as well, so I think it is a mixture of things that is driving the market at the moment.”

Anthony Cook of John Cook Real Estate said they have been selling properties prior to them being advertised and those that are listed don’t stay on the market long.

“It has been pretty nuts. There is a huge lack of stock,” said Anthony. “The amount of properties that have exchanged hands has gone up and down, but the amount of stock has dropped from 1100, to 900, to 500 to 300 and that's the problem that we've got — anything that comes on the market is gone. If people are a bit tentative and not wanting to make that jump then it's gone.”

Anthony said they have been actively out looking for prospective sellers to meet the demand.

“There are people coming to town that have nowhere to go, they sort of select a couple of areas and we go visit those areas and drop flyers around to say we've got people with a certain budget that want to buy,” he said.

“There is just not as much on the market; people don't have ten or twelve [properties] to pick from. They might be lucky to have two and then they are competing for those two with 15 other people. Buyers are everywhere.”