As a boy, I spent long summer days on my grandparents’ wheat and sheep farm  on the Dale River, about 1 ½ hours drive over the Darling Range from Perth.

It was hot and baked dry with yellowed stubble covering the rolling granite hills. The trees that dotted the landscape were predominantly large dead silvered skeletal remains, with axe marks on their trunks from the efficient “ring barking” that had killed them.

We caught koonacs in the smelly dam water with sheep pellets as bait, the ubiquitous bush flies coating us.

Crows, black and garrulous, croak and call, the noise flat and hard in the heat.

My grandmother is part of this landscape, in her faded cotton shirt (the pattern now indiscernible and sun bleached) and worn nondescript flat-soled leather shoes, squinting against the sunlight. 

Dor Dor, (as known to her then tribe of grandsons) was as practical a solution, to the demands of eking an existence in the Australian bush, as there ever was. I suppose she was tough, but I don’t remember her that way. She fed us stewed fruit, paddock picked mushrooms, homemade tomato chutney, lemon curd, pan fried sheep’s brains, chops and kangaroo fry. We thought she excelled at dessert - and the broken up stale bread covered in cream and milk with a topping of fig jam was my personal favourite!

She raised turkeys and chooks. Free range, before the politically “woke” knew what free range was. They scratched amongst the dead grass and wood heaps, away from the chicken wire and corrugated iron enclosure that was a night time sanctuary from foxes. 

Like some totemic offering, the chook yard wire was hung with desiccated bird bones and the spent black streamers of tattered crow feathers. A warning. For as the turkeys scratched in the dirt, gobbling excitedly, and the chooks fluffed in the dust, the eggs in the chook yard lay unprotected. 

The crows with their unrelenting caws, are also unrepentant recidivist egg thieves. The bright orange yolk an elixir. Several magnitudes better than their usual fare of picked over lamb’s carcasses and unlucky grasshoppers. 

Their raids are opportunistic. As the alarming gobbles of the fan tailed turkeys disappear across the hill toward the manna of spilled grain under the silos, the crows gather along the top of the enclosure. Unbalanced, on the thin galvanized piece of fencing wire, wings stretching out like awkward trapeze artists they are ready for an easy swoop down into the laying boxes.

Dor Dor fiercely loved her family and her poultry by extension. They were part of the world that existed and was given succor by my grandmother to feed a multitude of adults and children. She did a roaring trade in turkeys at Christmas time, with farmer’s wives putting in their orders each year (I remember the little tomahawk, the chopping block and the signature stench of boiled feathers). And the chooks she fed and called and culled, as required to satisfy family demands for both eggs and meat. 

The crows were not part of this world.

The 410 shotgun was loaded out of the gun-shy crows’ sight, behind the grey jarrah picket fence of the house yard. Double barreled. It was light and considered a lady’s gun. Not as heavy as a 12 gauge. Perfect for dispatching snakes and vermin around the house. 

The crows, whilst engaged in the orgiastic fervor of breaking open as many eggs as avianly possible, weren’t thinking about Dor Dor as she strode purposely through the yellowed grass. Or her 410. 

I remember, her long fingers twitching wire around another crow’s leathery limp black legs, affixing it to the fence. The bright glossy blue black feathers hanging down askew and akimbo, the dead glass of its eye, watching me.

Derek Baston

Loan serviceability requirements  for buyers  have relaxed - buyers can now borrow more.

Banks are aggressively courting customers.

Interest rates are trending down = mortgage repayments will be less.

Owner occupiers really are the only buyers in the market.

Investors are unicorns.

There is a lack of quality stock on the market seeing buyers now competing for the ‘good’ houses.

An oversupply of ex-rental investor stock on the market means owners must sell at a discount, or not at all.

Buyers from the mining sector are active in our market.

The Spring market is around the corner. Sellers are preening, painting and prepping ready to get the show on the road in the coming weeks.

Off market transactions are real. The best houses often don’t make it to the internet. Be proactive.

Facebook sells houses.

Yes, you should ‘dress’ your house for sale.  

EOI = End of Interest

Use the Agent the most buyers trust. Not the cheapest agent, or the agent who quotes the highest predicted sale price.

It’s better to trade up, in a down market.

Sale prices matter. Change over prices matter more.

Houses don’t sell themselves.

The best buyers, buy the best houses, at the best prices.

Derek Baston
M: 0417 99 23 24

The dust is settling, and so to the victor belong the spoils.

Every three years, like the Hunger Games come to life, we ‘the audience” get to vote for our various Federal political aspirants.

Invariably the incumbent is disadvantaged, wearing the folly of their political hubris like a hairshirt. Three years of constant media scrutiny is a virtual death sentence at the polls. The LNP had a hairshirt of some embarrassing complexity. With leadership changes, onion eating and philandering foist high on the flagpole of foibles.

It was indeed a particularly aberrant and exceptional opposition that could wrestle a loss from this storm of electoral perfection.

In the social media echo chambers the din was loud for a Labor win.  The left clamouring to say their bit to each other, over and over, louder and louder. They yelled so loud that they drowned themselves out. Like noise cancelling headphones, Australia said “we don’t want to listen”. 

History gives us a loss for Labor and the pundits gave us the reasons;

 1. Bill - an awkward man. With cadence deprivation syndrome, that is the uncanny ability to make you feel uncomfortable while he spoke.

2. A campaign with an unabashed socialist and redistributive agenda that targeted the ‘middle’ (and like a kid goading another into a playground fight, called them ‘the top-end of town’).  Or as I saw one commentator write, tapping his penchant for the classics, “the Left flew too close to the sun and the wax melted their wings”.

3. Overconfidence. Nothing is less Australian. Said Bowen, “if you don’t like our policies, then don’t vote for us!” And they didn’t.

4.ScoMo - as smooth as butterscotch ice cream, packing family values and bonhomie in equal measure, he was the Liberal campaign.

So here we are on the other side. 

Certainty rules. A calmness emanates. There is a stillness. Like two Balinese village dogs, finished snarling and biting, one lies in the dust licking its bloody wounds and the other is busily pissing on tree trunks, claiming the spoils.

The risk of a rug being pulled from beneath the feet of various institutions and industries is gone. 

For the months prior to the election I have answered the questions, “what will happen when Labor win?” And it was a question asked with trepidation, could people even look into the maw of future uncertainty? And it seems no-one could. What would the world of no negative gearing and compromised capital gains tax law look like? Who could say? In the wasteland of collapsed housing prices and sales activity, why would Labor even countenance such depraved acts of revisionism? It struck fear into the heart of the home buying public.

Well that fear is lifted. Like a dark cloak, heavy on the market’s shoulders. Gone. And with a posie of positivity tucked under its arm the market, like a liberated Red Riding Hood, feels ready to skip along. The good news of APRA’s position change on lending assessment and soon to be Reserve Bank rate cuts ringing in its ears. 

The election result was a clarion call to get back to business. 

In WA we’re just ramping up again in our specialty, Big Hole Digging. This frenetic mining activity is filtering down to the residential market. Rents are up. Vacancies are down. My last four Buyers have been directly associated with mining. 

To steal a phrase from political circles, ‘It’s time”.

Derek Baston

It’s a federal election and it’s tempting to write a tome in response to the noise that the political parties are making.

But in these times of electoral verbosity and media messages on repeat I would hate to add my political voice to the mess that charades as electioneering.

I feel I can at least comment on a policy relating to residential real estate that the major parties have “agreed” on. 

Whoever holds the reins of power has committed to underwriting the home loans of a percentage of first home buyers who qualify by having a suitably low income.  In a nutshell the policy will allow a 5% deposit - down from 20%, and the government will go guarantor.

This seductive policy is exciting for those young people denied an immediate opportunity to participate in the great Aussie dream of home ownership.

So what could it mean? Well it brings forward demand in a small portion of the market. It is likely, for this niche of affordable homes, with increased demand driven by government policy, that the prices will go up more than 5%. The benefit of the policy immediately flowing to the sellers.

Even worse, these battling younger buyers will commit to a bigger home loan than if they had saved a bigger deposit. So what you say? Well a bigger loan equals more interest paid over the life of the loan. 

This policy is a win for the banks.  It de-risks their loan book, increases the size of these loans and makes them more money.

If a buyer can’t afford to be in the market, (this next bit is controversial) well maybe they shouldn’t be buying a house? We are taking the most vulnerable and unsophisticated buyers and  shoehorning them into a place where perhaps they don’t belong.

Currently in WA we are seeing the direct and disastrous results of this type of government lever pulling. On the periphery of Perth defaults rates are high and negative equity is the reality. Many of these first time buyers were induced into the market with sweetheart deals of $15,000 - $10,000 first home buyer grants, $0 stamp duty and easy lending conditions.

Fiddling around in the marketplace because it buys votes will end in tears.

Derek Baston

Are you really selling?  

This is the question I ask my Sellers. 

“Of course!” they say. In most cases, they are put out that the Agent would ask such a stupid question.

“We need to sell because (insert reason).”

In Perth, more Sellers than ever are being asked to accept offers below their original purchase price. This inconvenient reality is often glossed over by Agents at the point of listing. 

Even worse, some Agents are appealing to the Seller’s belief (hope) that there is a chance that some wood duck Buyer will come along and pay above tote odds. 

This mythical Buyer has just come into money (lotto, divorce settlement, rich uncle has died etc) and  believes the best thing they can do is over pay for Perth real estate. Believe me, in the current market these Buyers are unicorns (much talked about, never seen). 

In a seductive ruse some Agents are happy to go unicorn hunting at their Seller’s expense. It is called ‘no price marketing’ and it takes many forms (EOI, Set to Sale, End Date Sale, POA etc).

Agents that start a campaign without a fixed price do their Sellers a disservice. 

“Mr and Mrs Seller, if we remove price from the marketing there is a chance that someone will pay a premium price if they really love the home!

Wouldn’t that be great? (Agent nods, Seller nods back). We can always put a price on the property after a couple of weeks if this strategy doesn’t come off.” 

The reality is substantially different. The property is marketed without a price for two weeks (this is the prime time for Buyer interaction on new listings online). Buyers decide when viewing online that the Seller must either want too much, as there is no price advertised, or Buyers decide that it is just too hard to transact on, as there isn’t an asking price. 

Let’s face it, if a Buyer does make contact with the Agent, guess what the question they ask is? “What do the Sellers want?” “How much?” Not answering this question directly is also a big Buyer turn off.

In a world trained to consume in online transactions, making it harder for already cautious Buyers is just dumb.

So two weeks in the Agent says “Mr and Mrs Seller unfortunately we haven’t secured your premium price. The Buyers who have come through have given price feedback at X price. Unfortunately that’s where the market is.” 

The truth of the above scenario is the Agent possibly had a pretty good sense of the real selling price before the campaign but felt if they had shared the real price, they may not have secured the listing. This is disingenuous and unethical at best. 

The real tragedy is that the Seller has missed the magic first couple of weeks window of engagement with qualified Buyers, who know market values and are ready to spend their money!

That’s why I ask Sellers the question, “Are you really selling?”. 

It’s a precursor to a conversation about what’s really happening in the market. And what a home may really be worth.  It’s a professional approach and it deals in reality.

Yes part of my job is to maximize price for my Sellers. But with Perth stock levels in the 17,000′s, money difficult to obtain and sales volumes down, my first and foremost goal is to generate offers for my Sellers. 

17 years in this profession tells me that the best transactions start with a frank conversation and a relationship built on trusted advice. Treat Sellers and Buyers with respect. Communicate effectively and truthfully. 

In the current market it may not always be what Sellers want to hear, but if they are “really selling” it’s the only way. 

Derek Baston

Very recently it was announced that Baston & Co. Property was one of three finalists in the Victoria Park Inaugural Business of the Year Awards.

Not a bad effort for this little team of awesome people, we are absolutely thrilled!

The winner will be announced at the awards night very soon and was based on a number of criteria - Community involvement and support, numbers/growth and a few other key points.
We have no doubt that we’ll be up against some stiff competition given the calibre of amazing businesses in Town, but we’ve given it all we’ve got!

Additionally, we were also nominated for the People’s Choice Award.
We don’t often ask for much but we would really love your help and your vote.
It’ll only take a minute!

Please click on the link below to register your vote and thank you!

https://www.victoriapark.wa.gov.au/Business/Vic-Park-Business-Awards/Peoples-Choice-Award

Lee & Derek Baston

Baston & Co. Property

Ok real estate isn’t warfare, but it is certainly tough for property owners who are trying to work out what the market is doing.

Locally, there is a definite resurgence in first home buyer activity, with the established home sub-$550,000 bracket moving quite healthily (this does not yet extend to apartments).

Homes on their own block are sought after and selling well, particularly character homes that are well maintained, and modern 4x2 family homes.

Apartments of any description are good buying and can often be obtained below replacement cost.

Vacancy rates are low and rents are on the rise.

Poorly presented properties struggle to sell, with the Buyer pool being, on the whole, owner occupiers who want ready-to-live-in homes.

Investors are few and far between but the canny operators are back in the market sniffing around, understanding “it is time to buy”.

Activity-wise it is ramping up, by our standard we had a slow February (still in the top 30 Agents in WA), but already in the first 2 weeks of March we have done the same number of transactions!

Buyer numbers at opens are exceptionally good and bode well for future sales.

For me this simple metric of high home open numbers and low sales figures means Buyers are waiting for a cue to buy. What will actualise this demand? Honestly I am not sure even the Buyers themselves know!
The answer is always sentiment. Positivity. And Western Australia is about the only place in the country that has a sniff of that.

Stay tuned for more updates in what will prove to be an interesting marketplace this year as we weather the uncertainty of a Federal election.

Derek Baston

If you’ve not heard about the F45 fitness phenomenon sweeping the globe, you’ve been living under a rock!

45 minutes of air gasping, hardcore fun with experienced personal trainers and a studio of awesome humans.  

You’ll never do the same workout twice, and every now and then the DJ brings his decks in and gets the party started.

The Team at F45 Victoria Park have very generously offered us a free 3 month membership to give away to one lucky person in the hood!

No more excuses, now is your time!

Click on the link below to enter and Good Luck! 

https://bastonandco.com/win

*Entries close at 4pm Thursday March 21st and the winner drawn and announced at 5pm.