Any crazy things you might have done from the past to purchase a property

One of my friends recently has done a crazy thing by making an offer without viewing the property.

 

It's one thing to act crazy and irrational so the other party in the negotiation doesn't know how to play you. It's another thing altogether to BE crazy. Buying sight unseen without appropriate measures in place has the potential to be dangerous. I hope your friend had someone being his/her eyes.

 

He said years ago his friend did the same thing.

 

What's appropriate measures, @JacM?

I just had an offer accepted after making an offer on a property sight unseen.

 

I did it on two of ours - Kalgoorlie.

I also bought two others (our first two) without finance and pest/building clause - low ball as well; this was designed to get them cheaper and it worked.

 

When divorcing back in 2004 we sold 4 separate high positives during the boom in Mandurah WA through an agent, all went to individual Eastern States investors, none came over and inspected, all done via research, photos, email etc.

Hindsight I wish I hadn't been such an emotional wreck at the time, thought more or been advised better, within 12mths they were all worth a further ~50% of what we sold for, today even though the markets soft in the area there worth 4 times what we paid for them.

 

I bought both of my qld properties without seeing them myself.
Relied on B&P inspection and my rental agent viewing them..

 

It's not that crazy making an offer. There's a cooling off period if they accept it.
Good way to get stuck if you don't do all of the appropriate research though.

 

Move into my ppor in just over a week. Still haven't been inside.

 

Hey Hodor, are you building a new place or is it an existing house?

 

Existing, looks original 1970s.

Lots of work to be done. Needs new bath, kitchen etc anyway. B&P was OK so only updating things and a few drainage issues to sort. Oh and one bathroom is too leaky to use ATM.

Can't wait

 

Haha, "looks original 1970s." That's the way.
Where are you moving?

 

Yeah I've done quite a bit. Don't know i'f i'd call them 'crazy' but one time I was dealing with an REA and getting to know 'more' about the vendors reasons for selling etc and during our second conversation he asked if we can discuss the property further over a 'casual lunch'. From the beginning it was obvious he was gay. yes, of course I went to lunch with him to discuss property in general and of course the property I was interested in. Great lunch. Even greater deal on the property. Somehow I got the feeling he didn't ask all interested parties to lunch to discuss. He was a really nice guy too.

 

Another one. During discussions with the REA on a property, knowledge that the vendors were very active and very big on donating to a certain charity (I think it was the Starlight foundation) somehow was casually mentioned in chit chat with the agent. I didn't think anything of it at the time. Later on when was I crafting my offer, terms etc, I included in the contract something like "upon successful settlement, buyer will donate $5,000 to vendors chosen charity". Cutting a long story short I was successful with the property on the price and terms I wanted. Few weeks later when I was catching up with the agent he mentioned that my offer was not the most competitive offer however the vendors were very moved with my donation term and decided to sell to me. Now that's what I call a win-win-win. Vendor, buyer and charity!

 

Nice One!
Most agents I've met would push the higher offer to vendor so they get >%commission.

 

And did you donate the money?

 

And you could have claimed a deductible (if it was a registered DGR).

 

Of course. I'm not a thief. Wrote a check and gave it to the vendors.

 

Yeah I know what you mean. I think sometimes agents are tactical in which offer they really push forward. Like someone who is finance ready and no issues with an offer say 5-10k less than someone else who the agent has an inkling is not finance ready etc.. sometimes they are careful on which offer they 'push' more. imo. I like to let the agent know I mean business. Finance ready, i'm ready to buy asap and i'm not going to waste their time. If we can make it work lets do it, otherwise I wont waste your time. I give them a feeling of strong confidence in me.

 

In date order, these are in suburbs we play in and have done business cases before in so its not as 'seat of the pants' as it sounds, except the first that was young eagerness.

used every dollar i had (including selling my car and getting a lease after settling on the house) to purchase my first house, on the day of moving in 'removed' a wall because my kitchen table didn't fit. Which triggered a reno that lasted the ~18 months i lived in the house before selling to buy my second house.

Sat down at 6pm on a saturday with the REA and owner to negotiate a sale the week before an auction. The place was exceptionally poorly 'renovated' and the owner was particularly 'quicky'

purchased a cheap country place at auction, we were just in the town checking our another couple of our places and the auction didn't go well, paid the first part of the deposit on credit card and wrote a couple of forward dated cheques.

2 houses going for auction same day numbers were good on both, we won the first at auction which in my opinion was the better of the 2 anyway. While at the second auction my mum more or less called me a chicken and said she would lend me the deposit for this one, we we purchased it too. At settlement we had these 2 which were unrentable (needed plumbing replaced as copper had been stolen, floor done, paint, blinds) and another one which we were just finishing up, so had 3 unrented at once and i think had bills draining (already borrowed) funds at an alarming rate.

was bidding on a place as it was extremely cheap, had one of the agents go get me the 32/contract of sale again so i could double check a few things, had my wife ring my mum as we didn't have a cheque book on us and she lived 5 minutes away. Ended up bowing out at the last minute as it went past my back of napkin lots of fat in it price.

purchased the last one JV with my mum, who reported quite clean on the outside, needs everything on the inside and she had only quickly been through it once, it was an off market purchase through a REA who knew us.