Min – Hampton Family Home

Even though Min was already renting in the area where she wanted to buy her family home, and was familiar with it, she still found it very difficult to properly assess the value of the homes she was looking at every weekend. In addition to that, the market kept moving, with some auction results ending way beyond the estate agents advertised estimates. She did notice though that not all properties experienced the same level of demand, so she vaguely understood that, aside from personal preferences, there must have been some fundamental reasons why a property would be more in-demand than another, therefore influencing its value and ultimately the sale price.

Obviously, there are many factors that contribute to the long-term value of a property, but some of them are not at all obvious to the inexperienced home buyer. For example, most people would know that location is the most important variable to consider, but in some instances just being on a street corner rather than in the middle of the same street, or on the east side rather than on the west side, can make a huge difference in the future capital growth prospects of a property. The type of construction and the age of the property need to be properly assessed, is the home built in a style that will keep appealing to buyers in years to come as the property ages? Is it likely to need renovation or major maintenance works? If structural changes, such as extensions have already been made by previous owners was the work done in compliance with building regulations? These and several other important questions can only be answered by real estate experts based on their professional knowledge, access to data not available to the public and years of experience in the field. Even when Min would find a house that she liked she couldn’t be sure there wasn’t something wrong with it. The selling agents, who are professional negotiators acting on behalf of the vendor were certainly not going to alert her of potential issues and would only highlight the best features of the house and perhaps not quite in the most objective way either. After all, their job is to maximize the sale price for the vendor. After many months of frustrating experiences, of getting more and more confused by the different methods of sale through which certain properties were being offered to the market, such as auction, private sale, expression of interest, private auction, sale by set date, etc., Min decided to seek the help of a professional buyer’s agent to ensure she would buy a property that suited her requirements, had no major issues, had excellent capital growth prospects and which would be purchased at the lowest possible price in the current market.

What Lily and Massimo from Only Estate Property Buyer’s Agents did for Min and her family.

In her case, Min had already found a property that she believed suited her requirements and it was being offered for private sale. She had inspected it and the selling agent was making a strong argument to her that at $1.9mil. the house was selling for not even land value, since a property down the road, with less than two thirds of the land size compared to this one, had recently sold for $1,930,000 and was also indicating that there were other buyers already interested around that level. Min wasn’t so sure, but $1,900,000 was within her budget and was certainly prepared to pay that much to secure the house.

Not wanting to make a rush decision she might later regret Min contacted Lily and Massimo from Only Estate Property Buyer’s Agents asking for their opinion. The price aside, there were other concerns. The house was a timber construction dating back to the 1950’s. Originally built with a 2-bedroom configuration had later been expanded to 4-bedroom by converting the original garage. The vendor’s agent was of little to no help in clarifying anything related to the actual construction and the timeline of the extension. After examining the contract of sale, which contained little relevant information, Massimo got in touch directly with the Planning and Building Department of the local Council and, amongst other things, verified what the local Council rules were in respect of building a new garage or carport, since the house had neither. Massimo from this point also took over all interactions with the selling agent. Upon detailed analysis of comparable sales in the area, and after inspecting the property, Massimo determined that a fair price for Min to acquire the home would have been around $1,850,000, if there were not hidden problems with the building. Once all details and concerns were addressed with Min and her family Massimo proceeded to submit a formal offer on behalf of Min for $1,800,000 subject to a satisfactory building and pest inspection. The rationale was that if the building inspector had uncovered any issue of concern with the building, the offer could have been withdrawn or the offer price revised down. The building actually turned out to be in better conditions than Massimo had initially thought given the age of the property and given that the agent was highlighting the fact that the property was selling for even less than “land value”. Min was thrilled and Min husband who was at the time overseas and could not inspect the property himself was relieved not only to have saved $100,000 but also to be certain that the house had ho hidden problems.