How to sell the homestead

[duncan macgregor]

Thats what i did with my lifestyle property which might be of some interest to other potential sellers in this down trending market.
1, Private sale plus general agency for every real estate company in a 50K radius.
2, ended up with nine different real estate companies.
3, selected the agent with the most listings in each company to list it with.
4,advertised it on trademe privately got over 3000 hits for one ph call.
5,sales people three were brilliant two useless and four were gushy HA HA bull sh*tters.
6,Told the lot if they tried to talk down my price without an offer on the table they would be fired.
7,I had a registered valuer value the property for GST reasons who turned out to be useless. I told him he was an utter incompetant his value of the house and curtlidge against the general value of the property was at least $80,000 to low and his $720 fee was way to high.
8, I had one conditional offer at asking price that fell over, then another unconditional offer which i accepted which was exactly the eighty thousand dollars above my micky mouse valuers valuation.
9, I have a long settlement date with them being retiring farmers giving me time to organize my next move.
10, Buying a new B&T house next at the beach, to her indoors specifications.
Buying condition is that my unconditional property sale goes through, with rent paid in advance to the date of sale. The people buying might get hit by a bus which is the reason for that. Buying and selling a property requires you to think up everything that might go wrong and guard against it.
11, My property was on nine agents web sites, was pictured in nine MREINZ shop windows, they are there to be used. I had no signs up unless for open homes which they booked in to do.
Thats how i did it in a falling market got exactly what my expected sell price was, and screwed the building company on the new house. I lived here for fourteen years if i take my sell price deduct the agents fees and divide it by what it cost me to build and set up i get 4.4. A lot of pleasure doing it, a blank canvas turning it into a beautifull picture is a very pleasurable thing to do. Macdunk

[Mick100]

sounds as though you know what your doing when it comes to realestate Macdunk - Well done - particuary getting 80k above valuation
.

[duncan macgregor]

sounds as though you know what your doing when it comes to realestate Macdunk - Well done - particuary getting 80k above valuation
.

The value of a property MICK is in the eye of the beholder. There is no such thing as an accurate valuation. I had all the agents value the place at listing then write the value they thought on the back of their business card. Would you beleave a variation above the valuers at $134000 down to a $15000 above. Macdunk

[lakedaemonian]

Thats what i did with my lifestyle property which might be of some interest to other potential sellers in this down trending market.
1, Private sale plus general agency for every real estate company in a 50K radius.
2, ended up with nine different real estate companies.
3, selected the agent with the most listings in each company to list it with.
4,advertised it on trademe privately got over 3000 hits for one ph call.
5,sales people three were brilliant two useless and four were gushy HA HA bull sh*tters.
6,Told the lot if they tried to talk down my price without an offer on the table they would be fired.
7,I had a registered valuer value the property for GST reasons who turned out to be useless. I told him he was an utter incompetant his value of the house and curtlidge against the general value of the property was at least $80,000 to low and his $720 fee was way to high.
8, I had one conditional offer at asking price that fell over, then another unconditional offer which i accepted which was exactly the eighty thousand dollars above my micky mouse valuers valuation.
9, I have a long settlement date with them being retiring farmers giving me time to organize my next move.
10, Buying a new B&T house next at the beach, to her indoors specifications.
Buying condition is that my unconditional property sale goes through, with rent paid in advance to the date of sale. The people buying might get hit by a bus which is the reason for that. Buying and selling a property requires you to think up everything that might go wrong and guard against it.
11, My property was on nine agents web sites, was pictured in nine MREINZ shop windows, they are there to be used. I had no signs up unless for open homes which they booked in to do.
Thats how i did it in a falling market got exactly what my expected sell price was, and screwed the building company on the new house. I lived here for fourteen years if i take my sell price deduct the agents fees and divide it by what it cost me to build and set up i get 4.4. A lot of pleasure doing it, a blank canvas turning it into a beautifull picture is a very pleasurable thing to do. Macdunk

Sounds like a job well done.

I would add that most people who attempt to manage the sale of their property/home(which for most is by far their biggest asset), would fail for the following reasons:

*failure to gain/maintain a clinical/non-emotional approach to the sale of their biggest asset

*market ignorance or irrationally optomistic perspective on property valuation

*ignorance of property purchase/sale process

*lack of listing exclusivity would likely put the property low on the radar of individual agents/agencies, unless priced quite realistically.

The local private sales I've seen attempted(3-4 in our suburb ) have all failed and relisted with agencies......my opinion is that they were all unrealistic on price in a declining market.

The topic of real estate values has come up a lot recently with neighbours......only 1 of the families in our suburb during these conversations has even come close to rationalizing in their minds a downwards trend in market pricing.....they are still thinking 2006-2007 $$$ signs.

As far as "registered valuers" goes........I've seen first hand how they were quite "elastic", to be polite, in putting aggressive valuations on properties for finance during the sellers market.......I would think they would now be under the gun by banks to low-ball valuations from here in a buyers market to allow the absorbtion of any further property price declines so I'm not surprised your valuer lowballed you.

My wife and I are looking at a property up for auction in our suburb next week....been listed for 6 months, price has been irrational thus far, they have bought elsewhere and the market has continued to move against them while they hope for a buyer from 2006/2007, so it smells like financial stress to us, and the auction is being described as definitely selling on the day......so we might be buyers(and possibly sellers) if the price is right.

So your experience may be useful for us moving forward...cheers!

Just my 0.02c

[Snapper]

We sold last year and have been renting since then but are looking around. As has already been stated the problem with private sellers is that they often have an unrealistic expectation of price and they also haven't had a third party(ie RE agent) offering some price guidance and actively trying to get them to price it for the market. Another issue is that they are often poorly advertised so when the private seller doesn't sell at a particular price they think that its due to lack of coverage which will be rectified when they put it with an agent.

A good thing that might come out of the current market is a squeeze on RE fees which are at a ridiculous level. I saw some stats the other day that there are 16,000 RE agents in NZ with only 50,000 house sales per year. In a falling market these exorbitant RE fees are an impediment to the seller negotiating a lower price. If the market's going up sellers aren't too worried but in a falling market its a different story.

[David Hardman]

Thats what i did with my lifestyle property which might be of some interest to other potential sellers in this down trending market.
1, Private sale plus general agency for every real estate company in a 50K radius.
2, ended up with nine different real estate companies.
3, selected the agent with the most listings in each company to list it with.
4,advertised it on trademe privately got over 3000 hits for one ph call.
5,sales people three were brilliant two useless and four were gushy HA HA bull sh*tters.
6,Told the lot if they tried to talk down my price without an offer on the table they would be fired.
7,I had a registered valuer value the property for GST reasons who turned out to be useless. I told him he was an utter incompetant his value of the house and curtlidge against the general value of the property was at least $80,000 to low and his $720 fee was way to high.
8, I had one conditional offer at asking price that fell over, then another unconditional offer which i accepted which was exactly the eighty thousand dollars above my micky mouse valuers valuation.
9, I have a long settlement date with them being retiring farmers giving me time to organize my next move.
10, Buying a new B&T house next at the beach, to her indoors specifications.
Buying condition is that my unconditional property sale goes through, with rent paid in advance to the date of sale. The people buying might get hit by a bus which is the reason for that. Buying and selling a property requires you to think up everything that might go wrong and guard against it.
11, My property was on nine agents web sites, was pictured in nine MREINZ shop windows, they are there to be used. I had no signs up unless for open homes which they booked in to do.
Thats how i did it in a falling market got exactly what my expected sell price was, and screwed the building company on the new house. I lived here for fourteen years if i take my sell price deduct the agents fees and divide it by what it cost me to build and set up i get 4.4. A lot of pleasure doing it, a blank canvas turning it into a beautifull picture is a very pleasurable thing to do. Macdunk

Mac

Did the 9 agents ask you for any advertising $$$.. Did you pay any?.. Apart from being in their shop windows and TradeMe what other "advertising" did you have?

My Takapuna rental has been on the market for 4 months.. Dropped asking price 25k.... Had about 6 people through the entire time.. While I'd like to sell, I don't need to, so I'm taking it off the market next week. The current tenants are great and happy to stay on.. Will try again in a few years.

Cost me about 2k in advertising fees!

My folks had their "8 arce hobby farm" up for auction last week. This is quality property 40mins from Auckland city. Not a single bid. Think they spent over 15k on advertising.

Its crap market out there so well done on getting a good result.

[duncan macgregor]

DAVID, I spent about four hundred dollars myself in advertizing. The agents spent on advertizing open homes mostly other than the cost of the internet. Newspapers and property press was useless compared to the shop window, and internet. People that are buying crossed the road after having coffee at the cafe and spotted it in the shop window.
Remember the agent gets paid a similar ammount to sell a general as they are selling a sole agency. The more agents that see the property the better. I found three out of nine were good thank god i spread it around to include them. You wont know until you see them with a potential buyer if they are any good or not. Macdunk

[Dr_Who]

The value of a property MICK is in the eye of the beholder. There is no such thing as an accurate valuation. I had all the agents value the place at listing then write the value they thought on the back of their business card. Would you beleave a variation above the valuers at $134000 down to a $15000 above. Macdunk

Congrads MD.

I find alot of registered valuers are totally useless. I recalled a valuer who did a valuation on one of my investment property in a not so good area 20% below the price I purchased it. He didnt take into account the property was right in front of the water. He only took the average of the area and did the valuation. I sold the property 2 years later 100% capital gains.

[foodee]

MacD
Great effort but than I would not expect anything less from you.

I would be loathe to build for a retired exbuilder!

Good luck

cheers

[minimoke]

My folks had their "8 arce hobby farm" up for auction last week. This is quality property 40mins from Auckland city. Not a single bid. Think they spent over 15k on advertising.
.

Two things instantly reek here. Firstly the Auction and the $15k in fees. Your folks have been well and truly done over.

Auctions are one of the biggest cons around IMHO. They may work for a property where there is going to be a high demand but a “life style” block is hard to flick off in the best of times let alone with high interest rates and rising petrol prices.

What sellers don’t realise is that real estate advertising by agents is all about raising the agency profile - not about getting your house to the target market. Single column ads in the real estate pages will achieve the same thing – if you want to be flash go double column!

Duncans approach is a sure fire way to success. The only things I’d fine tune is flag away the valuer – why waste the money. And have a heart - don’t exploit so many real estate agents – three agents will provide ample opportunity and never sign any sort of agreement with them.

Selling privately is the only way to go – its not hard to get right. But just wait for the vultures to circle if they get a wiff that the seller isn’t going to be up for it!