A year for the ages at Lucas Real Estate

As a specialty Docklands agency, Lucas Real Estate has long held a stranglehold over postcode 3008’s residential property market.

So much so, record breaking sales have become somewhat second nature for an agency which celebrates two decades of service to Docklanders next year.

It may not surprise you to know Lucas Real Estate has posted its most successful 12 months on record with more than 200 properties sold this financial year.

What will surprise you is just how far the gap is between Lucas Real Estate and its nearest competitor when it comes to sales in Docklands.

During the past 12 months, Lucas Real Estate sold 152 properties in Docklands, while its nearest competitor sold 46.

Its other significant stats from the past year include conducting 1962 open for inspections, facilitating 1332 private inspections and 15,948 calls made.

The agency also generated 11,000 new enquiries, posted 48 new blogs, saw 154,797 social media impressions, and eager property hunters saw over one million online sales property views. There were 130,000 unique visitors to its website, with over 600 hours of video viewership and the Lucas E-newsletters are read on average 70,000 times per month.

Lucas Real Estate director Baden Lucas told Docklands News his agency’s success over the past 12 months was credited to an “incredibly hard-working team” which “specialises in the sale of inner-city apartments.”

“Our agents are able to give a high level to comfort to buyers because of their local knowledge,” Mr Lucas said. “They are able to continually answer the questions asked of them; to have a local agent who specialises in the sale of apartments is so important to choose for this local market.”

“It comes down to communication, it comes down to understanding buyer behaviours, the way buyers interact with properties and the depth of the conversations our team has with them to understand what they ultimately want to achieve. That gives our vendors the ultimate advantage.”

“One of the things we learned [during the pandemic], is that we need to be faster. Faster to market, faster to respond, faster to book appointments and service buyers, and we needed to make sure we had the right technology behind us.”

With the median apartment price in Docklands approximately $600,000, Mr Lucas said the flurry of activity in the currently owner-occupier-dominant market was due to Docklands’ affordability with proximity to the city, convenience of transportation, attractiveness of lifestyle and accessibility to quality early and primary school education.

Another driving factor continuing to influence Docklands’ residential market is first home buyers’ stamp duty savings and concessions for properties up to $750,000 coupled with the Victorian Government’s “Homebuyer Fund” – a shared equity scheme where eligible homebuyers can receive a contribution of up to 25 per cent towards the purchase price of their property, reducing their minimum required deposit to five per cent.  

“We are seeing a lot of tenants who were previously renting with Lucas Real Estate coming to open for inspections with the intentions to buy,” Mr Lucas said.

“There aren’t many places in Melbourne where you can get a great lifestyle, where you can find great childcare and education for your kids, where you can get around without the need for a car, all for around $600,000,” Mr Lucas said.

“People who are selling properties in Melbourne’s CBD, Southbank, West Melbourne, Port Melbourne, North Melbourne, they want agencies that specialise in the sale of apartments.”

“Those people who are coming through our open for inspections are seeing the enthusiasm and the professionalism [of] our team, they are then calling us to sell their property in those suburbs.”

As one of the strongest performing independent brands in the inner-city, Mr Lucas said his agency’s record-breaking numbers had been a testament to the proactive nature of his sales agents and the fact they were able to speak and deal with buyers or serve vendors with industry leading professionalism.

According to Mr Lucas, Docklands’ rental market has continued to bounce back from the dark days of mid-2021 when vacancy rates sat between five and eight per cent, and now they are at near pre-COVID levels of one per cent.

“We have seen rental prices recover, not quite to the point of pre-pandemic levels, but a swift return. Over the six months our team have never seen the level of [rental] enquiry,” Mr Lucas said.

“I have one piece of advice for landlords who are with other agencies: if you have leased your property over the last two years during COVID-19 speak with a member of our team about getting a price update.”

While the agency has its eyes firmly set on opening a second and third office, it is also on the hunt for a new generation of Lucas Real Estate sales executives, property managers and administration staff.

If you are interested in a career in the residential property industry, get in touch with the Lucas Real Estate team.  •

For more information: lucasre.com.au