How about something along the lines of, 'Subject to pest and building inspection reports to the satisfaction of the purchaser'?

That way you (the purchaser) can say if you're satisfied or not.

Just my 2 cents' worth.

sammmeee, definitely go with your price of $275K.  If they say yes, you're done!  Easy

If they say no, make a lot of noises along the lines of, 'Oh….. that's disappointing….. my (wife/partner/OH/whatever) really doesn't want to pay above that…… s/he says it's not worth it to him/her to pay any more…….' then finish the call with, 'I'll talk to him/her and let you know by COB tomorrow.'

Don't call them by COB tomorrow – leave it another day or so, then call back – with $280K.

Trust me, this works like a charm!  This is exactly how we've done it on many occasions and it's worked every time.  Easy

And remember, have fun!  As somebody once said, the bargain of the year appears on a weekly basis

Good luck!!

PS: I agree, it's definitely a buyer's market at the moment…. use it to your advantage.

Okay, where we went wrong….
1. Buying one bedroom units which were smaller than 50m2;
2. Getting a friend to help us with the renovations on one of those units (took ten months and nearly sent us to the financial edge due to lost rental income over that time);
3.  Buying one of those units in a really bad complex – no upkeep/maintenance done, dodgy strata manager, etc;
4.  Buying one of those units at too high a price for what it was.

We've done pretty well with our follow up properties (these were our first two IPs) so at least we're learning from our mistakes!!!

We've really liked dealing with Tyron Adametz, from Select Mortgage Services.  His mobile is 044 88 99 173.

I should probably add I'm not getting any kickbacks for advertising MHIFS, and I'm in no way connected or associated with them – we just had a great experience selling ourselves, and they were a big part of that. <end disclaimer>

I have to admit, of the people who we speak to about our properties, they are fairly carefully chosen.  Apart from immediate family (my parents & brother) and his dad and stepmum, other family aren't aware.  This includes my husband's mother, stepdad, sister and brother.  They wouldn't understand, and there's no point banging your head against a brick wall – the brick wall doesn't start to give way first!

This was something we consciously decided before we actually purchased our first property.  We had a good talk about it and thought very carefully about who we would and wouldn't tell, and why.  No point in leaving yourself open to unnecessary grief!

We have had our four depreciation schedules done by Australian Tax Depreciation Services (ATDS).  They are excellent.  They charge $495 which includes a site visit, which is preferable.  Very happy with them.  We've just bought another property and will be going with ATDS for that schedule also.
They have offices in all states of Australia too. 
Web link: ATDS

We do the same thing.  In fact we bought a property just under two years ago, renovated it (did a lot of the work ourselves) and just sold it for an amount 30% higher than the original price.  Not bad in a market supposed to be fairly flat.  Apart from completely renovating it, we added furniture, and tenanted it for an excellent price, which made it very appealing to a 'set and forget' investor market (we ended up selling to an investor rather than a home owner, which was what we anticipated would happen).

We always offer a low price.  This is helped by the fact that we always go for places that need some work – so many people are put off by bathrooms/kitchens that need renovating.  Even just having a filthy tenant can put buyers off, they can't see how a coat of paint could change the look of the whole place.

We prefer to wait until the property has been on the market for a few weeks.  That way, if there's little interest, it's given the vendors time to realise that their asking price might be too ambitious, and therefore be more flexible.

I usually do the legwork, ie. view the property by myself.  I'm quite happy to tell the RE agent things like, 'I'm keen but it's not worth the asking price' if I think this is the case, together with, 'I'm keen but my husband hates renovating, and he's the one I'd have to convince'.  Both these statements are true, hence I have no problems being upfront.

I also tend to be fairly guarded about the info I give out.  In some circumstances I say as little as possible.  In others, I'm happy to be fairly upfront.  It depends what works in a given situation.  For example we're currently looking at two different properties.  I've let both agents know that theirs is not the only property we're looking at.  Both need work, and have been on the market for a little while, in suburbs that generally sell very quickly.  I also get the impression (from the agents themselves) that the vendors are motivated, which always helps!

It does help to know why the vendors are selling.  Sometimes agents won't/can't tell you, which is fine, they have no obligation to pass this info on.  You can usually gauge from the agent how motivated the vendor is by their actions – one of the agents called me today after another unattended home open, to try to 'suss out' our intentions.  I was very upfront with her, and at the end of the conversation she said (twice) 'You know, it's a very good market for you to buy right now'.  I can't help but think that this was a bit of a hint to put in another offer (we put one in a couple of weeks ago that was 'too low' so the vendors didn't even budge from their asking price, but it's amazing what happens in two weeks!).

Anyhow, these are just our experiences – it varies widely.  But it's all part of the fun

Definitely go for a QS.  We have used Australian Tax Depreciation Services for each of our four properties, and I can strongly recommend them. (And no I'm not an agent for them or a relative!)  They come out and do a site visit plus the schedule for $495, and are just excellent in terms of customer service etc.

Oh my.  This is an interesting topic!

We bought a 1×1 apartment in the WA suburb of Osborne Park a couple of years ago.  While OP is not that bad overall, the apartment block itself was a bit of a blight on the landscape.  Extremely high proportion of tenants, most of whom were very dodgy types (we heard the block recently referred to as 'Heroin Heights', which seems appropriate.)  The unit itself was beyond revolting, but this was one of the reasons we went for it – structurally fine, just needed a complete reno throughout, which we did.  We bought for $172K, spend about $15K on renos (we did a lot of the work ourselves) and today, it's worth about $230K.

Interestingly, over the last two years, the tenants have changed from drug addicts etc to young families…. it's definitely cleaned up, in terms of residents.  It has a completely different vibe compared to when we first bought there.

We've had mixed results with this one.  Good points:  excellent capital growth, due to a combination of OP's proximity to the city and the renovations we did; very manageable mortgage due to the low purchase price.  Bad points:  extremely poor/inactive strata council, meaning very little is actually done in terms of exterior maintenance (gutters peeling incredibly badly, lots of other stuff I won't go into here); the apartment itself is too small (45m2), which we should have worked out ourselves before we bought it; and as we bought and locked in to a high interest rate at the time, it's CF-, despite getting $300/week rent for it!

Really my key concern from an investment perspective is the fact that it's a one bedroom.  We are looking at selling this and our other 1×1 (also in OP, although a nicer area) to buy a 2×1 instead.

Anyhow, that's been our experience.  Mixed, basically.