Community & Business
2 June, 2023
Agents' $10m Friday
Pittsworth’s diverse real estate sector is firing on all cylinders right now, as evidenced by a big day of auctions by Ray White Rural on Friday 26th May.
Close to $10 million exchanged hands on Friday 26th May, as five out of seven properties sold under the hammer at a combined Ray White auction at Toowoomba’s Picnic Point.
Among them was the picturesque grazing property at Biddeston, Dunheath, which sold for $3.4 million and the 1660-hectare Lachlan Downs, part of the Macquarie Downs Aggregation, at Tummaville which got to $3.76 million.
“It was a mix of lifestyle properties and a farming property, we had a lot of interest and a really great crowd,” Ray White Rural Pittsworth’s Sally Croft
said.
The auction day was the culmination of a massive few weeks of marketing and open days.
“We see a lot of buyers who are selling out west and keen to move closer but still not wanting to live in Toowoomba,” Mrs Croft said.
“There’s a bit of migration where they come into areas like Pittsworth, it’s a bit of a mind set where they’re not ready to live in Toowoomba yet.
“You’ve also got people coming in buying places closer to Toowoomba for schooling when it gets to high school.
“The market is still
good – it’s not like Covid where it would be listed and sold within a week,
but there’s still strong interest for good quality properties.”
Mrs Croft said while interest rate rises were affecting some areas of the market, data was showing that many Australians managed to save during Covid and so there were still wide sectors in the community with the capacity to purchase properties.
She said Pittsworth also remained an appealing option for those wanting to leave the city for a quieter lifestyle where they could “enjoy the benefits of this amazing town we’ve got, with all the services, yet
still so close to Toowoomba.”
“The demand that (residential sales consultant) Kathy’s been having in town is testament to that,” she said.
Meanwhile, Sally and James Croft, who started
Ray White Rural in Pittsworth nine years ago, were among the 77 attendees at a prestigious Ray White gathering in Queenstown, New Zealand, last month that recognised the top performers in the network across Australia and New Zealand.
The ‘Chairman’s Elite’ two-day event was a chance to swap ideas between fellow leaders and the Pittsworth couple were there amongst their peers from more populous patches such as New Farm in Brisbane, Surfers Paradise and Sydney’s Epping.
“It was a great couple of days – we got to talk to like minded business owners and see that we’re all facing similar sorts of issues,” Mrs Croft said.
She said Covid had actually had a positive effect on the real estate sector.
“In Queensland people were moving up from Victoria and New South Wales to Brisbane and that was pushing people out of Brisbane who could work from home so as long as the internet was great they were looking at places around the Downs.
“James and I have been here nearly 10 years and Pittsworth always seems to punch above its weight.
“We’ve got so many different sectors here – you’ve got a $10 million cotton farm to grazing blocks to dryland to
lifestyle to houses and we do a lot of clearing sales as well.”
