Buyer Impatience Drives Property Price Growth

I recall way back when I was studying there were future projections about  how the rapid advances with computers were forecasted to deliver us so much more leisure time in the future,  because they were going to increase our productivity and efficiencies at work, meaning we would get the work done quicker then head home and enjoy life.

How wrong they were – what we have seen with significant advances with computers, the internet, and now hand held devices is certainly vast leaps forward in productivity and efficiency, however this hasn’t correlated to less working hours.  In fact it’s been the opposite, we are working harder and longer than ever before.

The result is a social change where we are more time poor than ever and  the most interesting  social change of all is our need for more instant gratification within our lives. And it’s no different when it comes to people deciding they want to buy a property.

Once their mindsets shift to ‘yes I’m going to do it’ they set off on their journey to make it happen and they don’t want it to take too long.

So what’s this got to do with driving property values higher-  simple really: it’s a ‘demand driver’.  Buyers will often chose a preferred location as a starting point and usually then look at their ability to buy into this market.

If it’s a historically competitive market place then auction is very much the preferred method of sale precisely for the point I am making in this article.

Assume a buyer has found a property that they really like and then they get beaten at auction the first time.  Repeat the process and they miss at the 2nd auction and maybe a 3rd.  It’s becoming very frustration for this buyer and their impatience is starting to play on their mind and rational thought process.  If they have been looking for over 3 months every Saturday and during the week via the internet, if they are serious about getting into the market they will be prepared to pay more and this will drive up values – it’s that simple.

What’s even more interesting is that there will be others (many of them) who will follow into the future, so one could argue if they bought a quality property in the right location they will do well over the longer term.

One thing is almost certain  when comparing an impatient buyer with the opposite extreme – the procrastinating buyer, history tells me the impatience buyer will win 99 times out of 100.