Add Category![Artwork for Sydney's longest listings. NSW real estate.](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" viewBox="0 0 1024 768"%3E%3C/svg%3E)
Some Sydney homes have been up for sale for close to a decade despite the booming market.
It was mid-2014 – Apple was about to release its iPhone 6 and people pouring ice buckets over their heads was the rage on social media. It was also the year one hopeful homeowner in Sydney’s east decided to list their home for sale.
Fast forward to today and the world has largely moved on from those events, but the seller in Maroubra is still trying to offload their five-bedroom house.
The two-level home on Wise St has topped a PropTrack list of the NSW properties that have been on the market for the longest without selling.
The long-in-the-tooth property listings have survived unsold after multiple price booms that saw buyer demand become so intense that nearly everything listed at the time sold – and for high sums.
This included a 2021 market frenzy that pushed property values up at the fastest annual rate since Australia’s postwar period and the third fastest rate in more than 100 years, according to ANU research.
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The Maroubra property was first listed in 2014, before being relisted in 2015. There is no price guide.
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Records indicated the seller in Maroubra has been trying to offload their home without an agent. The property was listed in 2014 for two months, taken off the market, and relisted in 2015.
The two-level home has been “for sale” on listings portals like realestate.com.au ever since.
PropTrack lists the average amount of time it takes properties in Sydney to sell as about 40 days.
Among the other properties that have been on the market for years without selling is a retail office in Gladesville with a one-bedroom unit out the back.
The Victoria Rd property has been up for sale for over eight years. Records showed it last sold in 2007 for $690,000, which was about $40,000 below the median house price in Gladesville at the time.
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This Gladesville home was first listed in June 2017 and remains listed on property portals. The price guide is $4.2m.
The price is now $4.2m, down from the $4.4m it was listed for in 2017. For some perspective, the current median price of houses in the suburb is $2.74m.
One of the longest listed entirely non-residential properties is a parking space in Sydney’s CBD known to be the country’s most expensive at $525,000.
The owner has had the Bond St double parking space listed for sale on a parking website since at least 2014.
There’s also a unique home in Leumeah that was built as a medieval castle, which has been up for sale for over two years. It includes a drawbridge, moat, turrets with arrowslits and gargoyles.
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This Penrith home was first listed in November 2018 and remains up for sale five years later. The current guide is $1.2m.
Real estate trainer and veteran agent and auctioneer Tom Panos said properties that were listed for years without selling usually involved unrealistic price expectations from the seller.
“When properties fail to sell it’s usually for two reasons: No one knows about them or they’re priced too high. The condition of the property is usually not a factor if it’s priced right,” he said.
“But keep in mind that even a poorly marketed property will become known to people if it’s up for sale for years, so price is the biggest factor that can extend a sales campaign.”
PropTrack economist Paul Ryan said seller’s expectations could sometimes drift too high if market conditions changed drastically.
Australia’s most expensive car spot: listed for $525,000 the sellers has been waiting more than 10 years to get a sale..
“When prices are flat or going down, it can take longer for sellers to adjust their expectations,” he said.
“The properties may also be unique or in an area that is not a typical place for buyers to be looking, which is why regional areas can take longer.
“It could also be the case that a property has been on the market so long that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, so to speak.”
Mr Ryan said some sellers may not have got an offer that they would, or could, accept.
“We saw that after the mining boom in the 2010s,” he said. “People bought at the top of the market but when prices fell, and they wanted to sell, they could not get the price they needed so they sat on the market.”
It’s been a two year wait to sell for the owners of this Leaumeah home styled liked a medieval castle.
This Frenchs Forest home was first listed in February 2018 and remains up for sale nearly 6.5 years later.
Mr Panos said it was telling that many of the listings that had been on the market the longest were being sold directly by the owners, without an agent.
“It’s easy for some people to conclude that they can sell it themselves, but you don’t know what you don’t know,” he said.
“Only a few owners are really in a position to personally sell their homes. The rest are too emotionally attached and there is a huge benefit in getting someone to guide you through the process.”