Australia’s real estate market ‘seems quite odd’. Even the experts are finding it hard to read

On the eve of Victoria’s last lockdown, Peter Mares was feeling cautiously optimistic.

He was about to bid on behalf of a friend for a two-bedroom apartment in Princes Hill, in inner Melbourne.

Listed as an “impeccably maintained retro”, Mares describes it as the best-situated flat in an ugly block of dark brown brick walk-ups dating from late 1960s.

When it came to price, he tells ABC RN’s Saturday Extra, he had a buffer of $100,000 above the advised price range.

“I was authorised by my friend to bid up to $780,000, but I didn’t get to put my hand up because it sailed past that and went to $845,000,” he says.

A few streets away, another friend of his had just moved into a similar apartment to take advantage of falling rents. It was a…