Selling properties for the 1st time-please help

Forgive me if there is already a Thread but I am unable to find.

I have never sold any property before but this is the time when we have decided to sell our 2 properties (1 PPOR and 1 IP) and buy 1 (ppor) in another suburb.

I would like to know how do you select the Sales Agent. I have got couple of appraisals from local agents along with their fee and charges and will speak to few more. Both properties are in dufferent suburbs so I may not be able to get a deal (sell with 1 agent and can get some discount).

There are few ways to pruce the property-set a pricee range , seek EOI or put one figure to work around.

I have read about few strategies about puting price to attract buyers and then work on to create competition.

Every sales agent talks about how good they are and they have list if sincere buyers registered on their books and they will promote the property to them before it gets advertised and online it will be on the 1st page for 7 days etc. etc.

All experienced and one time sellers and anyone else welcome to give me some tips

Please do mention if anything else I need to consider other than solicitor/conveyancer.

 

Any takers?

 

Look at the sales agent;s track record, not just the agency. Does he/she get consistently strong sales prices compared to listing price?

Call the agent from a blocked caller id, see if they answer. If they dont, see how long until they call back

Get a friend to do a web enquiry on one of their listings, see how long for an email or call back

 

Good point, much appreciated @DaveM

Just want to ask in relation to the following, how ahould I find out -Just ask?

"Look at the sales agent;s track record, not just the agency. Does he/she get consistently strong sales prices compared to listing price?"

 

When you look online for sold properties in your suburbs, the information provided for each house advertisement will usually show the asking price, the actual sale price and how many days the property took to sell.

 

I got it, on RE website , sales agent profile shows current listing and sold properties

 

All I can see is price and sold date along with other property info but not the asking price and sold price , unless all these properties are sold on asking price which makes it same!!

 

What I/we did for the sake of my old PPOR was to rate each local (same suburb) recent house sale out of 10, judging the house and the final sales price for each home in the last 6 months or so. (Keep in mind land slope, orientation, position, generally how the property performed given what the product was, bedrooms, bathrooms, carspaces, building materials etc.) A fair price = 5. A very good price would get an 8 or 9. A bad price might be 2 or 3. We lived in the suburb for 7 years and I followed property sales (monitored the market) throughout that whole time so I knew what was a good price and what was a bad price.

After that, we then averaged those scores for each agent. Ignored any agent out of area (one seemed to undersell by maybe 400k!) or only sold a very few properties in the area. Obviously, if it was styled, then that works in favour of better prices, but also photo quality has a huge impact. The best agents/agencies in my area take photos of properties that can really sell the place.

The new home was only 1.1km away from the old one (therefore we didn't use a moving van)....
Allowed the top 2 agents from the above to pitch, and also the agent of the house we bought. Yep... never planned to use that agent to sell though, but got them to pitch anyway since they knew we were going to sell. I honestly thought we bought our new place too cheaply
After that, we went with the agent that had the best score and her communication was excellent throughout, the commission rate was favourable, the photos came out brilliantly...
And she made us feel happy about the sale. No regrets. I'd use her again.

btw, the agents would suggest improvements to the house before sale - we ended up painting ours on the outside, cleaning the roof, getting a lot of garden cleanup done, putting in a bigger skylight for the kitchen.

All this effort either gets you a higher sales price, and/or for a slower market, helps sell the place at a solid price in a reasonable timeframe.

Of course, if it was a dead market... Marketing and selling could be a whole other story. But it was still a good market, good suburb with something like 30 days on market average . Good demand... Leafy suburb in a high performing school catchment area. Good (700+ sqm) sized blocks of land, excellent community feel. King parrots, kookaburras and rainbow lorikeets would commonly visit, take food out of your hand or even go onto your arms (not so much the kookaburras though). And still accessible to transport! A hidden gem.

 

Um, you are correct. I'm trying to remember where I have seen this extra info recently.

It was a brochure from an agency in my letter box this morning. Sorry, not online. I suspect I am thinking about RP Data which requires a subscription. Try On the House?

You local agents will prepare a booklet for you from RP Data with similar recently sold properties for you to compare.

 

Hi @L3ha7 - great questions and congrats on putting up your property for sale.

It can be a good experience if you find a good agent who genuinely looks after your interests as they would be wanting to build a long term relationship with you.

What you'll find (from experience working in a two large real estate agencies) is that the top agents normally have 80 - 90% of the listings in the local area. Furthermore with this amount of workload they would have a PA to help them manage the volume of paperwork that goes along with this. Hint: see if the agent you are interviewing has a PA as this could indicate they could afford to hire one full time and they are getting a lot of listings.

Additionally, if an agent recommends to go with an Auction, it usually performs best in a seller's market and that can be to your advantage to determine the highest price for your property. Then if that passes in at Auction, move onto a private treaty where you would have determined what the market price is for your property.

A few other things to look out for when interviewing for an agent:

• Check to see if they include advertising costs or if it is separate. Usually the top agents will charge the advertising fees separate and would also promote to their existing database
• Commission: In the past fees have been around 2 - 3.3% of the property price for a good agent. Just be careful of agents who charge a very low commission as their service is usually quite poor.
• Experience in the market: how long have they been an agent in the area for? Best to keep away from agents out of your area. E.g. more than 2 kms out of radius.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask me.

Thanks.

 

After searching online and looked at the agent profile and I contacted online and got a text msg after few mins. She has sold one townhouse recently in my street and online her property had the highest price.

Overall great tips @Gockie , I have met only 2 agents so far and 1 has impressed me but let's see how this girl does!!

 

Bundle of thanks @Smuh5 , much appreciated for tips.

 

No worries, will check it out

 

Just a quick question- when agent says that they got more buyers who have missed on the similar property , how to find if it is a truth or just attracting?

Secondly, if Auction is a way to go and someone offer what we think we want on an open home then is it still worth going for an auction @Smuh5 ?

Also my properties are not massive -1 is 3bed 2 bath 1 garage duplex and another townhouse.

 

Keep digging more into the history of sales for the last 6 months.
How are the prices for the sales - not just one or two properties, but all of them? How do they compare?

 

I also found RE Agent comparison tool on RE website.

Thanks so much guys.

 

Usually it's a marketing tactic to entice vendors to list with the agent.

Though, if there has been a property recently sold in the area within the last couple of weeks, then yes I would say they've got buyers on their database who would show interest.

What you could do is if you're comfortable with the agent is to see if they would be willing to send these buyers through via an open house one weekend and see if you can get a sale. It's an easy commission for the agent and hardly any work.

RE Offer before Auction: if you get an offer beforehand on the first weekend then it's ideal to take the offer because by the time a buyer waits to go to Auction usually in 4 weeks time, they may have found something else more suitable. That could be the risk of waiting as well.

I've found if you receive two or three offers, the agent will be able to do a silent auction (behind the scenes) to get the highest price between the buyers and that would save you having to go to the full auction.

 

You need to have a realistic price in mind. That way you dont get tempted by the agent who gives you the highest appraisal. Also if you get the offer, youll take it instead of holding out for a better one.

 

Brillient stuff @Smuh5 , thanks for that.

 

You do know that the ranking and data is based on only the agents who paid for the service ?
Good agents dont always need to manipulate their profile using a paid service. Some of the best are quiet achievers.

Drive around your suburb. Who is the big listing agent ? Talk to them and ask why you should choose them. They have loads to tell you. Dont rush in - Listen to a few and see what they say.
How do they market ? What do they suggest ? How long do they think it may take ? They will all say they have customers looking but listen and learn.

If you are listing two props in one area see if they can do both for a deal.

One of the best tests for a great agent is asking them what they charge and try to negotiate it down. The real good agent will be dismissive and defend their ability. Find an agent who sells themself. The last thing you want is the wimp who wants you to drop your price. You want a fair price and then hold it.