Highlights from this week:
- The facts behind job stats
- How smart property investors spend Christmas
- Where the land deals are being done
- Brisbane becomes the benchmark
- The fall and rise in the West
Transcripts:
The facts behind job stats – Simon Pressley
Kevin: It’s always a good discussion for us to have about what is it that influences property prices, and you’re no stranger to the fact that if you’re a regular listener to the show that we talk about a number of indicators. One of those is jobs and it’s a pretty important one, but to talk about that and the other points too, I’m joined by Simon Pressley from Propertyology. Simon, thanks again for your time.
Simon: Always good to be on, Kevin.
Kevin: Simon, let’s talk about jobs and job growth and what we’re seeing. What do you think in the years ahead are going to be the key indicators to keep property prices growing?
Simon: Yeah, look and contrary to what I guess the broader commentary is at the moment which is very much one of doom and gloom, Propertyology actually anticipates that as early as late next year, Kevin, we could see parts of Australia actually having a property boom. Right here and right now, it’s tight credit that’s been a drag on property prices, but the underlying fundamentals are I’d argue stronger now than what they’ve been at any time over the last decade, and job growth is one of those. We’ve now had two consecutive calendar years where this country has created more than 300,000 extra jobs in a single calendar year.
Simon: Now I’ve been back through all the ADS data, and I could not see any time in Australian history where we’ve had two consecutive years of 300,000-plus jobs, and we need that sort of stuff for property markets to grow. When you’ve got improving economies, you not only create more jobs and attract more people to a location, but you increase confidence within a community and you increase the potential for wage growth. We need these things to buy property now when they’re expensive.
Kevin: We do, and when we look back on the figures that you’ve supplied me in the graph, we’re looking at 2017, 2018, those two consecutive years you’re talking about, they’re amongst two of the best years we’ve had in the last decade.
Simon: Yeah, that’s right. 2008, I call that the good old days, because it was pre-GFC. The world changed significantly at the end of 2008, but we created about 300,000 jobs in 2008. We actually lost jobs in 2009 from the GFC, and then we had a stimulus package for those who can recall that in 2010. But even in a stimulus package year, and what was it, 50 billion dollars or something that we threw at the economy, it created about 260,000 jobs in 2010 with the stimulus package, and we’ve been nowhere near that volume of jobs since then until the last two years. We need to be patting ourselves on the back and looking at lots of really positive things about our economy which provide that really solid floor that’s going to push property markets up, just not in Sydney and Melbourne.
Kevin: That stimulus package, while it may have been very good in 2010, it probably still had a residual impact on 2011 and ’12. Even though the job numbers did decline in those two years, it just shows you how devastating that GFC was.
Simon: Yeah, that’s right. I guess at the time it was described as the Armageddon, the biggest worldwide economic downturn in the history of mankind. Lots of countries obviously went in recession. Australia managed to avoid that, but I cannot stress enough I believe that right now our economy has never been in better shape in the last decade, which is totally contrary to the broader negative tone that’s circulating in the media at the moment.
Kevin: And if we look at some of the job growth in some of the regional areas as well, we’re seeing spectacular growth in some of those, in the regional areas, putting aside the cap cities which really haven’t grown all that much by comparison.
Simon: Yeah. We’ve got a graphic we’ll put up on the Propertyology website where we show the cumulative increase in job volumes in our eight capital cities over the last two years, and then in amongst that is some of the regions and they’re two or three times the increase in job volumes in parts of our regional markets. Some of those regional locations have already experienced some really strong property price growth and others have had the job creation, but that’s yet to filter through to property price growth, and that’s some signals for what lies ahead in those locations.
Kevin: Well, there you go. That’s what you sort of get when you work with a company like Propertyology, and Simon, you’ll have those up on your website as well. If you can send me a link to that article, we’ll put that in the commentary here with this interview, and you can click on that link and it’ll take you straight through to Propertyology. If you could do that for me.
Simon: Yep. I will. You’ll find those charts in our property market outlook blog that will be hitting the website in the next couple of days.
Kevin: Beautiful stuff. Okay, Simon Pressley from Propertyology. Thanks for your time, mate.
Simon: My pleasure. Thank you.
How smart property investors spend Christmas – Michael Ossitt
Kevin: Well at a time I guess when we’re sort of relaxing with the family and celebrating Christmas and the new year, we tend sometimes to overlook the fact that things move on. The shops are still open, people are still looking to sell their property. Michael Ossitt from Strand Property Group joins me to talk about the opportunities that do lie. So you’re expecting, Michael, that you might be selling some properties over this Christmas period? Or buying some in your case?
Michael: Absolutely, Kevin, yeah. So we don’t really switch off over the holidays. We tend to find some good opportunities. As I mentioned you know vendors still need to sell, regardless of Christmas and New Year, but we tend to find a lot of buyers disappear at this time.
Kevin: Yeah, generally anyone who’s got their property on the market right now, and being prepared to have inspections over this period, you’d think would be fairly serious wouldn’t they?
Michael: Yeah, absolutely and especially for those vendors that might have bought already as well. So they could have been out shopping in September and October and found their next property and they’ve got to get their existing one sold. So they’re certainly going to be the ones that are serious over this period and still letting people through.
Kevin: It’s interesting you say that, Michael, because end of the year is a time where people do make the decision to move, or to change jobs or change locations. How can a buyer be sure they’re dealing with a serious seller at this time? What are the things that you would suggest they look at?
Michael: A good thing to look at obviously is to find out how long the property’s been on the market for, so if it’s been on a little while, they’re obviously going to be more motivated to sell, but asking lots of questions as well of the selling agent, so trying to find out the motivations of the vendor. Find out if you can if they have bought elsewhere, and really their true reason for moving. I mean if they have bought elsewhere, they might have a limited settlement on that property and they need to sell, so that really does offer up a good opportunity for a buyer to get a good deal at this time of year.
Kevin: Yeah, at a time when we’re getting more listings on the market and listings aren’t selling, the market swings from being a seller’s market to a buyer’s market. Buyers have great control. This is a time when they should leverage that control, which is really what you’re saying isn’t it? Not miss the opportunity.
Michael: Absolutely, absolutely, and what we’re seeing obviously in the broad media is a lot of negativity about the property market. But you know, as I keep telling my clients, if you take a long term horizon, it’s these periods of time where you can actually pick up a fantastic opportunity. As long as the property is right for what you’re trying to achieve and whether that’s investment or for yourself and just because there’s lots of properties on the market, or there’s a potential bargain there doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a great property. So you’ve still got to do your due diligence and still choose the right thing.
Kevin: A lot of negative press at present about the property market all centred around Sydney and Melbourne of course, which constitutes the major part of the Australian market anyway. What do you see ahead for Sydney in 2019?
Michael: Yeah, so what’s going to be interesting going into next year is obviously we’ve got the royal commission the first of February. The final report coming out and obviously we’re going into an election, so broadly speaking, but for Sydney as well there’s a lot of uncertainty, but once we start to see that pan out, I actually think we’re going to start to see Sydney levelling off next year and there’s even talk of things you know starting to pick up. I think slowly, we’re not gonna see a quick rebound next year. But a big thing that plays in Sydney is obviously new dwellings. Now we’re seeing the approvals come off of that, we’re seeing a number of new apartments and dwellings, commencements reduced. So we’re going to go through this period where we’ve still got big population growth coming into Sydney and Melbourne, but the number of new dwellings is obviously reducing, so we’re going to get back to that equilibrium point where the demand’s gonna pick back up again. So it’s only a matter of time really.
Kevin: The unit market in Sydney, is that running any risk of over supply?
Michael: I mean broadly speaking, I think that risk is now gone, but there are pockets where we are seeing still a lot of units coming through and developers starting to struggle to sell some of those as well. So it’s going to affect prices in those areas and potentially rentals as well if you’ve got a big supply of renal properties in certain pockets. But the areas that we deal in generally, sort of the eastern suburbs, lower north shore and beaches we’re not seeing as much supply of new apartments coming through but you look at Parramatta and the hills, there’s certainly a glut of apartments coming though there, Kevin.
Kevin: Where’s the best buying opportunities now, Michael?
Michael: Look, I think it’s always that long term prospect of picking the good areas close to where people want to work and generally in Sydney that’s closer to the CBD within that sort of 5 to 10K radius, but in areas where there isn’t a big supply or a big future supply. I definitely don’t recommend you know buying right in the CBD or in that south Sydney pocket where there’s lots of rezoning potential, but in those pockets where there is a large supply of new dwellings.
Kevin: Can you give me an example of some of the locations you’re talking about?
Michael: Yeah I mean some of the areas where to buy in is like Neutral Bay, Cremorne, up towards Manly and those areas and obviously the adjacent suburbs like Potts Point, and you know down towards the beaches is always gonna have that demand stronger than what they can build there.
Kevin: Some of those areas you mentioned, there’s some really good older style units in there, quite robust, well built, good locations. What sort of price would you be paying for a two bedder in those areas?
Michael: You’re still looking around the million dollar mark for a solid two bedder. It has come off a little bit from where we were at the peak, but you could argue that the peak in the middle of last year with all that sort of exuberance and people paying silly money at auction, so I think we’ve come back to a fair value now. But yeah, you’re still looking around that sort of 900 to a million for a good two bedder, and generally that’s what we’re buying as well as those well established blocks and smaller blocks you know, less than sort of 20 to 30 units, no more than that. And things with renovation opportunities as well. So especially in this market now, you know you can add value yourself by spending some money internally and improving it.
Kevin: Michael, thank you very much for your time. Michael is from Strand Property Group. The website, Michael, is it-
Michael: Yeah, Strandpropertygroup.com.au.
Kevin: Nice and easy. Thank you, Michael, talk to you again soon.
Michael: Thanks Kevin, cheers. Bye.
Where the land deals are being done – Nicki Hay
Kevin: There’s always a lot of focus on what’s happening in Sydney and Melbourne and we’re going to turn this interview into a look specifically at the Melbourne market. Of course, we know that it’s all about supply and demand, and supply is all about new land coming on. That’s why we’re going to focus in this interview on where the land corridors are opening up around Melbourne.
Kevin: Joining me to talk about it, Nicki Hay from Core Projects, they specialise in bringing land on, and also project marketing and projects. Nicki thank you for joining us in the show. What through your company are you seeing about land and its availability and where is it opening up?
Nicki: Thanks, Kevin. I guess what we’re seeing at the moment is that there’s still supply coming on in I guess all the regions around Melbourne, in the southeast and the west. Certainly Geelong has become a more predominant player sort of over the last twelve months. Really, where the true supply where were seeing a lot of the volume being done. Is where were seeing sort of average sales figures is the west does have a larger supply of land at the moment. And it’s sort of coming online as well.
Kevin: So what areas would that take in when you talk about Melbourne’s West?
Nicki: Its sort of taking in [inaudible 00:01:18] Rock Bank, Plumpton all of those areas’ sort of. Within that 40 ks of the CBD.
Kevin: Yeah I believe that in September you reported that 50% of all the lots sold were sold in that area. What was the average price, how much do they selling for?
Nicki: I mean in that market it depends, so an area like Plumpton that is closer to the established suburbs like Caroline Springs they have a higher average. But if were sort of looking generally at the west it would sort of be anywhere between sub $300 to sort of $325k.
Kevin: And what size lots are they, typically?
Nicki: Typically, I should sort of put it around $400k and give or take sort of 5% on either side of that.
Kevin: And resales… are they having any uptick in prices, is there any increase?
Nicki: Yes, certainly if you sort of purchased between twelve and eighteen months ago you would…there’s a significant price up lift there. Probably since, in the land market we sort of…the figures tell us that around January, February is really where…it has peaked if you will in terms of price points. So sort of purchasing from there to here on in. Is probably not a great shift within that timeframe.
Kevin: Where are the areas most developing around Melbourne? What are you seeing in terms of where people are wanting to live basically?
Nicki: Yeah, it’s been really interesting to observe sort of over the last eighteen months, the number of people looking to Geelong. Certainly that was affordability to begin with but now I think you know, people who have had family or friends who have moved out there or are doing the rental stage before they buy and they’re realising the lifestyle benefits of Geelong. And we’re seeing the increased market really about to do substantial volume. For example, one of our largest projects out near Warralily, sort of did 550 sales in 12 months there.
Kevin: Yeah, because those regional area around Geelong as you mentioned and even out into Gippsland there’s really good communication links to get people back into Melbourne. We’re finding a lot of people are actually moving to some of those regionally areas and then travelling back into Melbourne to work as well.
Nicki: Yeah, definitely. I think initially when we started work on that project it was, a lot more of a local purchaser. That sort of ,in the last twelve months particularly, there has been quite a substantial increase in the number of people out of the area being from Melbourne West or even from inner Melbourne that are looking for that lifestyle change. Or affordability but yet that can commute back. That’s been a really strong trend that we’ve noticed out in Geelong.
Kevin: I’ve been talking Nicki Hay. Nicki is Core Projects retail director. Nicki, thank you very much for your time.
Nicki: No worries. Thanks for having me Kevin.
Brisbane becomes the benchmark – Shannon Davis
Kevin: There has certainly been a lot of focus on the Queensland market. And I think you’re going to see that accelerate into 2019. So I want to have a look back on 2018, as it relates to the Queensland market, because in some ways it’s quite a benchmark for what’s happening in the rest of Australia. Never thought I’d say that. When there’s so much news coming out of Sydney and Melbourne.
Kevin: Joining me to help me do this is Shannon Davis. Shannon has a very good handle on the, particularly Brisbane, market but also the broader Queensland market and how that relates to what’s happening nationally and internationally. Shannon, thanks. That was a big buildup, mate I hope you’ve got everything ready.
Shannon: Yeah, everything ready Kevin.
Kevin: Shannon Davis, of course, is from Image Property. Shannon, let’s have a look at the highlights, and lowlights, of 2018, firstly.
Shannon: Yeah, I think in 2018, it’ll be remembered just starting to see the beginning of light at the end of the tunnel to the apartment market. I believe we’re through the worst of it. Its hit the bottom and you’re starting to see vacancy tighten, interstate migration, and I think with the apartment side of the market, this will be the year that it sort of bottomed out and started to, in perhaps six to 12 months start get better prices and better rentals.
Kevin: Just on that point, has there been much of an oversupply?
Shannon: Oh, yeah. It was massive there, but about 2017 Christmas the construction problem stopped. So the problem wasn’t being added to. So now we’re in the absorption phase and we’re just starting to see that that part of the market’s showing the early grass green roots coming through and starting to better. So, I think that’s the good news for 2018.
Kevin: Have there been a lot of sites that you know of that have been mothballed? You know, developers who bought them and just sort of sitting on them waiting for the market to turn around?
Shannon: Yeah, definitely. Developers are shelving plans to get out of the ground. There’s also been like more emphasis on building something new to market. So you’re starting to see people build bigger three bedroom units. So they’re going to support the downsizer market. Instead of building, say, 70 of what they originally had planned they’re building sort of 40 larger ones that are going to hit another demographic entirely.
Kevin: Yeah. Responding to a changing market. Okay, so what else have you noticed in 2018?
Shannon: Yeah. It was finally Brisbane’s time to shine. So, you know, the Southeast corners done really well. Hasn’t had the boom of the Southern markets so it’s not going to have the bust of the Southern markets and finally people started seeing the gap between Southern markets and Brisbane market showed value and moved. Moved themselves up here. We’re not seeing that many investors. At the moment I think people are waiting for the federal election to see what transpires there. Or, the Royal Commission into banking. But, you are definitely seeing lots of Southern owner/occupiers buying for properties be it in rentals or sales.
Kevin: Are these units or houses they’re looking at?
Shannon: We’re seeing mostly houses. But, you are seeing people with lots of applications from down South in the rental market. They’ve still got a bit of a tenants market to choose from. So they’ve got a lot of things in their favour.
Kevin: Some of those rental markets, particularly in Sydney and Melbourne, have been very, very expensive haven’t they? Is affordability really what’s driving both rentals and sales into the Southeast corner?
Shannon: I think also we started adding some jobs which has helped. People like to move when they’ve got a job rather than lob somewhere unemployed. So, you know, that’s definitely helped. But, yeah, definitely the affordability side of things is huge when taking more than two incomes to pay off a mortgage or some people paying up to 50% of their take home pay in rent. It can hurt pretty quickly.
Kevin: Well, that paints a pretty rosy picture, particularly for Queensland. We’ll have a look at how that relates nationally in a moment. What were the lowlights? Any surprises for you in 2018, Shannon?
Shannon: Yeah. I think the effects of the Royal Banking Commission, I just didn’t expect that to sort of play out so soon. Just the market, but really it’s … I would say that we’re in the middle of a credit crunch already. The real crackdown on borrowers spending patterns, especially with the advent of something like PayPal, there’s really no hiding anything that you’re spending these days. So, things like Netflix and Uber Eats and all that sort of stuff. If you’re a compulsive user of those type of apps that’s going to hurt you when it comes time to go for credit.
Kevin: Yeah, interesting that. It’s something that I’d never really thought of. We carried a story on that recently about how you’ve got to be careful of not putting those things onto a credit card or, as you mentioned, their PayPal. I hadn’t thought about PayPal. But the banks certainly probably always had access to that information, but they’re really focused on it now.
Shannon: Yeah. Definitely. In all our opens recently just the investors, I can remember probably three out of last 100 people attending our open homes have probably been investors. So, you know, that’s just where we are in the market right now. People that are moving for home reasons, not investment reasons.
Kevin: Okay, any other points?
Shannon: Yeah, I think the lowlight also is proposed changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. I want to focus on the capital gains tax discount because I think that’s the one that people are sort of missing the point of. Everyone’s mentioned negative gearing but if you come to sell your property with the new changes that Bill Shorten’s endorsing and say there’s a $500,000 profit KT, well originally with a 50% discount you’re going to pay taxes on 250 grand. But, that’s going to change now and you’re going to pay taxes on 375 grand under that change. So, that’s quite a lot more tax. I don’t know if everyone’s sort of been focusing on that. But you could have, in some cases, a falling market and double the tax rate when it comes time to lock in your profits. So, it might be one for investors that are thinking of selling to maybe bring forward their decision into the early part of next year.
Kevin: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah, bring it forward or, in fact, after the election maybe hang on for a little bit longer.
Shannon: Yeah. Well, it won’t coming over night on election night. It’ll still need to pass both houses of Parliament. But, you know, I sold something for a decent gain this year. Under those laws I would have been up for a lot more tax, I think, I was set to be about another $25,000 in tax. So it’s something that you need to take into your account if you’re thinking of offloading soon.
Kevin: Just to round this out, Shannon, let’s look nationally. How do you think Queensland fits into the national scene going into 2019?
Shannon: Yeah. I think Brisbane investors and locals can have a lot more confidence in their property prices and values. I think the house markets been, standalone house markets been charging along. You’re starting to see those gains where other markets are sort of going backwards. You’re also starting to see the apartment oversupplies been largely absorbed and vacancy rates are tightening as well. So, you’ll probably see that it’s in good news in 2019.
Kevin: Yeah, that’s certainly good news. What about the regional markets around Australia? How do you think they’re going to fare? Because, some pretty sobering stories coming out of Sydney and Melbourne right now, aren’t there?
Shannon: Yeah. I think Newcastle and Geelong have done really well of Sydney and Melbourne property upturns in the last three years. I think the Queensland central coast market is starting to improve, areas around Mackay and Gladstone and Rockhampton have seen that with the uptick in commodities that, that regions going to go a little bit better as well. Your tourism areas like Cairns, they’ve seen a few hard years but as long as cyclones and that don’t come to pass too much they should continue to benefit from the Chinese tourism that’s been going out. There’s also talk Western Australia’s markets finally bottomed as well.
Shannon: So, you know, I think there’s some good news around. What we need now, my wishlist Kevin, would be for the Royal Commission not to over correct and make lending too hard. Your banking’s the archery of the economy and we need a good credit environment to be able to continue the positive growth of the economy.
Kevin: Thanks, Shannon. A great insight there as to what happened in 2018. Some high points and some low points, which is what we like to try and do. Bring a bit of balance. Shannon Davis there from Image Property. Shannon, thanks very much for your time. All the best for Christmas and the New Year mate.
Shannon: You too, Kevin. Have a great holiday season and see you again in 2019.
The fall and rise in the West – Milton Rendell
Kevin: Of all the good news we’ve heard in 2018, probably couldn’t top off the good news we heard out of western Australian. Just the emergence of some green shoots in the market there. Joining us to talk about that, Milton Rendell. Milton is from Real Estate Plus, covers most of Perth and has a really good feel for what’s happening there. Milton, thanks for joining us on the show again.
MIlton: No, that’s no problem, Kevin, thanks for having me on.
Kevin: Yeah, let’s look back at 2018. It was a tough year, a real tough year for western Australia, for Perth, but you seem to have come through it okay, Milton.
MIlton: Yeah, there’s been some positive vibe certainly in the marketplace particularly this last quarter and we hope that will flow into early next year and certainly the second half of next year we’re expecting to see some definite movement for sure.
Kevin: What have been some of the big challenges for you as a real estate agent. Is that, you know communicating with people who’ve, looking at negative equity in their property?
MIlton: Look we had a situation, anyone who’s bought in say the previous four years were looking negatively equity situation in a number of suburbs. Not all suburbs, but those less demand suburbs, as you get out of the city, and sort of, you know particularly once you get about 15 Ks out it’s certainly dropped off. The building industry in west Australia has really dropped off. In fact I received an email from someone in the building industry and they would say they had 52 consecutive months of declining market in construction in west Australia. So that gives you a guide of where we’ve been.
Kevin: Yeah, well lets look at Perth firstly and then we’ll look at north and south of Perth. But in the Perth market itself, there was a lot of development happening down around the Foreshore. How’s that progressing?
MIlton: Yeah look it’s a very different market to a general market, but the oversees buyers who had been sniffing around had slowed down. I know around the south Perth area that some of these had dropped off slightly, but not hugely, but I know the demand had softened. Those sort of areas were getting snapped up probably five/six years ago, anywhere sort of close to the city was really was red hot, but there’s been a lot of unit development and there has been all around Australia and those have certainly slowed down. There’s certainly a few developers who have struggled to finish their projects.
Kevin: Are there many developers who are sitting on development sites not willing to develop many and mothballing them?
MIlton: Yes, yeah we’re seeing quite a bit of that. Probably in the area that we are, we’re only 14 K’s out of the city and there’s a couple of government projects which sort of were supposed to start at the beginning of this year were put into mothballs probably ’til the latter part of 2019 so when you see government projects decide to slow, it’s a pretty good indication what’s going on.
Kevin: The western Australian market just outside of Perth goes north and south and pretty much hugs the coast. Is there much of a difference between north and south? Has there been more development in one or the other?
MIlton: Oh look. Joondalup, which is north following the coast, there’s been a lot built, and this is in areas north of that, say areas like Butler and areas like that have really struggled. There’s a lot of negative growth there, but there’s a lot of new construction in the last five to ten years and those areas really came off quite a bit. South of the river, a bit of a mixed bag. And once again, once it gets beyond about probably that 6 kilometres of Perth outside where it’s north and south, we’ve suffered a pretty similar fate. But if you go down to areas like Mandurah, which was true south, they’ve had a lot of development there, it was probably over developed. Prices there for the last couple of years have really struggled, but having said that I’m hearing there are some sales ticking through now and people are starting to look at that again for holiday living, etc.
Kevin: And the tourism industry in WA, how’s that holding up?
MIlton: Yeah, look it had slowed considerably, but now that Qantas has announced direct flights to Europe and I feel it’s encouraged a few easterners have started to come back through, and also up north in Broom, they’ve got some cheap flights going up that way, ’cause that was becoming quite expensive to get up to those. I think what we’ve seen in the last three to six months from what I’ve been told from people in the tourism and the travel industry, they’ve certainly seen improvements. I mean not huge, but certainly heading in the right direction.
Kevin: For investors wanting to look at the WA market for specifically Perth, where would you suggest they should be looking and what sort of stocks should they be looking at, Milton?
MIlton: Oh look I think, you always follow the government. Wherever they’re spending money, that’s pretty general. So if [inaudible 00:04:54] and there’s some government money spent out there, so Midland is obviously in there. We are in and we’re delayed, but around south Perth is always very good. Subiaco is good proximity to the city. Certainly Yokine, areas of that nature, you know they’re very good proximity to the city, good infrastructure in terms of public transport, which is really, really important and the rental returns in those areas have held pretty well. Through the corridor that I have, the rents has come off, but so have the prices. So we’re almost in a positive geared situation through our corridor, which is for investors very attractive.
Kevin: Yeah, very attractive indeed. We’re looking at new house land packages or are these more established houses?
MIlton: This is more established homes. New house and land packages at the moment are very slow, that’s a very slow part of it. Having said that, probably in the last two months, there’s been good feedback in terms of first home buyer inquiry. That’s definitely on the improve and we have a finance broker now and we’re seeing that the general inquiry about finance is improving and I’d say we’re probably up in inquiry about 20%. So if that was across the market, that’d be sensational, but look to where we are to get that sort of inquiry improvement would definitely indicate that things are heading in the right direction.
Kevin: All the best my friend. It’s great to hear your voice and tremendous to hear that you’re you know ticking along, I know it’s been a tough year for you, but all the best for next year. All the best to you and your family of course also for Christmas, Milton. I look forward to talking to you next year.
MIlton: Thanks, and same to your family. It’s certainly been an entertaining 2018, but we’re looking forward to 2019 like I said earlier, I think we’ll see a slow trickle at the beginning. I think the second half of 2019 is probably where we’re gonna see more shift. But investors, you need to get on your bike now, I think, because we still, inquiry for rentals is up as well, so that generally brings rents up as well. So I think 2019 could be a good one for us.
Kevin: Yeah, I think investors will probably want to get on a plane rather than a bike, it’s a hell of a long way across to Perth.
MIlton: Good point, good point.
Kevin: Good on you, Milton. Great talking to you mate. Talk to you soon.
MIlton: Thanks. Good on you Kevin.