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If US President Joe Biden were, instead, a real estate agent in Mackay he would be a flop. Absolutely hopeless.
Agents like me would regularly receive calls from people who are planning to sell their homes saying: “Hi, it’s Bruce here. Listen, we had old Joe Biden around for an appraisal at our house and it was a complete disaster.
“He kept getting our names mixed up, and I can tell you my wife doesn’t look like a Bruce. He went for a walk to have a look at our garden out back but somehow got lost and spent 10 minutes talking to the neighbours over the back fence. Their daughter found him creepy.
“When we finally found him he seemed to be unsure about why he was even at our house … oh, and he fell over walking back up the stairs. To be honest, we need someone else to do an appraisal because we couldn’t trust Joe with something as important as the sale of our property.”
Yet Joe is the President of the United States and is lining up to have a crack at another term. If it wasn’t so serious it would be funny.
One of the issues Joe is dealing with at the moment is record levels of illegal immigration from Mexico into Texas. The Texas Government, sick of seeing millions of illegal immigrants crossing into the state, put up a barbed wire fence which the federal authorities ordered be removed.
The Texas Government says drug cartels are sending people over the border, so the Governor, along with governors of other states, has ordered National Guards into action to try to stem the flow of migrants.
There is a Mexican stand-off between the Biden Government on the one hand saying immigration is a federal matter and Republican states that say they have a right to protect their borders.
Immigration, the flow of people crossing borders to seek new opportunities, is a major phenomenon around the world at the moment but when it comes to Mackay and our real estate market there are definitely some positives.
I’ve been back at work for a month and have been very busy, with my listings attracting huge numbers of buyers. On my first day of open homes I didn’t have less than 20 groups at any property and I have regularly been getting more than 25 groups at open homes.
One of the key factors here is the number of buyers who are moving, or have recently moved, to Mackay. These people can’t get a rental so many of them are buying, often before they arrive and without having seen the property.
Mackay has also become very attractive to investors from down south.
I am now regularly receiving offers on properties from southern buyers’ agents whose clients have identified Mackay as a great real estate opportunity due to its relatively low house prices, low rental vacancies and strong rental returns.
The mixture of migration from the south, increased investor interest and our strong economy have set us up for a dynamic year for real estate.
Or, as Joe Biden would say: “You know it’s, well we see new people and my father always taught me with the economy it’s, you know … oh, forget it.”
