First Rental!

[minimoke]

It does not cost you anything to buy a property through an agent. Fees are only payable when selling. When selling you should always consider all your options but to say agents are rip offs just shows you may not understand how the market works. I'll never forget my neighbour skiting to me how they saved 15k in agent fees selling privately and that i was silly selling with an agency. Once they had finished i was able to tell them i had just recieved an offer for 64k more than they got selling privately. I was very happy to pay for the agents fee. I'm now an agent also and i don't get paid nearly as much as I'm worth.

Advice

Buy properties close to good schooling as they appreciate more in value when the market moves and are also less volitile when the market slows.

This wil get me going!!

Havent used an agent in all but one of my property sales and quite content with the out come. But heres a "rip off" test. Take a $500,000 house. Approx how many hours labour does it take to sell? (it hasnt taken me any more than 40 for any of my properties). How much of a $500,000 goes to a real estate agency?

Heres another test. "go to auction as the market will dictate the price" says our local agents. Duh! So what are we paying yoiu for if you dont know the market you work in?

[Topagent]

On average $15000 plus gst. So on many houses there would be quite often a difference of value from buyer a to buyer c greater than this. Just sold a property for $46,000 more than the asking price. We received 5 in total the worst being 10k under asking. The two best offers came from agents who had been working with their buyers for some time.

[minimoke]

On average $15000 plus gst. So on many houses there would be quite often a difference of value from buyer a to buyer c greater than this.

OK. Lets call it an average 3% on a $500,000 property.

Just sold a property for $46,000 more than the asking price. We received 5 in total the worst being 10k under asking. The two best offers came from agents who had been working with their buyers for some time.

When selling I allow a 10% buffer that I might need to be willing to drop to meet market at the time of sale. That makes me a Willing Seller.

10% is also a nice round number to negotiate around. ( I laugh at these UK property shows where they sell for 395,850 pounds and they dick around of multiples of 50 pounds. to me its value is $395,000 or $396,000 - who can be bothered arguing over a grand?)

Asking Price is not settling Price. Its purely a market indicator. It might mean the vendor is under or over valuing property.

I could put my $500,000 property on the market for $500,000. Through the process I reckon I reckon I would attract bids of between to $450,000 to $550,000 (because I am 10% out in my estimation)

An Agent doesnt magically conjure up an extra $46,000. The $46,000 was already sitting in the market. So there simply was a Willing Buyer who saw value at $546,000. (though in reality probably saw it at $550,000 and wanted to knock of a bit in the negotiations - we all love to deal!)

That said, receiving 5 offers on a property (without knowing any other detail) seems to be quite the result. Most properties I watch from time to time are luck to get one. Probably an indication the owner had under pitched value. But if he was a willing seller at $500,000 should Agents be interfering with the market - a purely rhetorical question but one I ponder from time to time when discussion about Auctions comes up)