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Almost 80,000 property settlements took place in December 2020, marking a two-year high for exchanges.
PEXA has reported 79,187 settlements taking place nationally, with 1,711 settlements being finalised on Christmas Eve alone.
While December is traditionally a busy period for settlements, the post-COVID-19 landscape has been attributed to the particularly active figures.
According to PEXA’s senior research manager, Michael Gill, everyone involved in the property settlement process do know to brace for the pre-Christmas rush.
He flagged that “2020 saw an increase in settlements of 22 per cent nationally year-on-year when compared to the month of December 2019”.
“We saw property settlement numbers begin to recover following the easing of restrictions nationally in the second half of the year. However, the rebound in Victoria was delayed due to the second lockdown,” Mr Gill said.
State by state, New South Wales generated the highest number of property sale settlements, numbering more than 24,500.
Victoria came in second with just under 21,000, while Queensland was not far behind, with almost 20,000 settlements.
According to PEXA, Western Australia and South Australia were consistent through all of 2020, while still managing moderate increases across the back half of the year.
Mr Gill gave a special mention to all of the conveyancers, lawyers, financial institutions as well as all those working within the property settlement process over the last 12 months.
He said they had displayed “flexibility, innovation and collaboration to make the buying and selling of property as seamless as possible during an extraordinary 2020”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Grace Ormsby
Grace is a journalist across Momentum property and investment brands. Grace joined Momentum Media in 2018, bringing with her a Bachelor of Laws and a Bachelor of Communication (Journalism) from the University of Newcastle. She’s passionate about delivering easy to digest information and content relevant to her key audiences and stakeholders.
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