Hi Swampy

Agents commissions shouldn't be your main consideration when choosing which agent is going to market and sell your home.

Vendors forget that they are "employing" an agent to do a job for them and don't bother to "interview" them about their previous results.  You have owned your property for 16 years so I would imagine that your house could probably do with some presentation tips to improve it chances of attracting buyers and selling for the best price.  Did any of the agents who appraised your property suggest your home could do with some improvements or did they recommend that you sell "as is" which is typical of most agents.

Would you sell your car "as is" or go to a new job interview dressed "as is"? No vendor ever benefits from selling the largest asset they will ever own "as  is" unless they want to sell their property for way below market value to a bargain hunter.

Some of the questions you should be asking your intended real estate agent are

1.  How many homes have you SOLD in the past 6 months?
2.  How many DOM (days on the market) were each of these listings?
3.  How many homes have you sold on the first open or in the first few weeks? 
4.  How many of the homes that you sold achieved the first listing price? In other words how many price reductions did the agent make to get the sale?  Do you want an agent who only gets a result by discounting your sale price?
5.  Will you do open inspections on week nights as well as weekends? Will you show prospective buyers the house outside of open inspection times?  (Sometimes buyers are not available for the advertised open inspection time once a week or the spouse may not be available and the husband/wife wants to see the property too before putting in an offer)

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Do you want the cheapest agent or the agent who has the best track record and will deliver you the best results?

Charyn Youngson | Houses to Impress | 0411 44 1038
Professional Home Stager | Property Renovator | Author
[email protected] | http://www.housestoimpress.com

Josh,

Educating yourself and finding a mentor is the best way to fast track creating wealth through property. There a lots of different strategies in property and you need to find one that resonates with your time as well as your finances.
A great start would be subscribing to Australian Property Magazine which covers all aspects of property investing plus a monthly update on every state suburb by suburb. It also features case studies of different investors and different strategies every month and it also has an online business mall with loads of books about every topic to do with property.

Next get an accountant and a mortgage broker who specilaise in property and know how all the ins and outs od lending in trusts and asset protection as well as tax minimisation. Make sure they also have a property portfolio themselves. I cover how to choose the right dream team in my latest book "Sold for Top Dollar – Low Cost Housing Improvements to Maximise your Sale"
A lot of the books on the market like Jan Somers and Steve McKnight's early titles were written years ago and are not relevant to today's market.  Michael Yardney has a great book and he also has a regular newsletter which is full of latest property info.

I suggest you also join a property investor group so you can mix with like minded people and network with them.  I can suggest you contact Jenny Brockis in Perth who runs Active Property Network (www.activepropertynetwork.com.au) meetings monthly. APN meetings educate investors and bring in guest speakers to broaden their members knowlege about all areas like finance, accounting, different strategies etc It is a great place to get referrals to professionals when you are starting out.

Good luck with your endeavours. Remember knowlege is power.

Cheers
Charyn Youngson
Author, Property Coach, Professional Home Stager
http://www.housestoimpress.com
http://www.soldfortopdollar.com.au

I have painted many bathroom and kitchen tiles and laminate.  Use White Knight Paints from Bunnings – they come up so well. 

Have a look at my before and after shots on my website to see the results.  It is very cost effective!

Cheers

Charyn
http://www.housestoimpress.com

Hi Paul

I had the same issue recently and this is what I did.  I painted the concrete with White Knight paving paint.  It cost me under $100.00  and took about 3 hours to complete (2 coats).  I actually did a feature on it on the home page of my website last week.  Have a look at the before and after shot to see the results, to see if it's something you could do in your area.  http://www.housestoimpress.com.au

It gave it such a lift and made the hug 15×5 Metre area look even bigger.

I hope this helps

Cheers

Charyn

Thank you..

Our main market is in SA, but we are branching out to interstate customers .  Currently we help interstate investors with their investment properties in SA, we source blinds, light fittings, anything they need for their properties so they do not need to travel interstate to purchase products and arrange someone to install etc.  We do the leg work and source cost effective products because we know where all the bargains are.  We save our customers a lot of money.

We can also do our makeover report for interstate customers – we would get the customer to send through pictures of their property and we could do our report off of the pictures and the details they give us.  We would do our report at a lower price because it is via email and phone and no travel is required. 

We are open to anything we can help any potential customer with, let me know if there is any way we can assist you.

Thank you