Hi All.
I am looking at selling my IP. (was PPOR so can sell soon without paying CGT)
I have tenants in there on a periodic lease and was hoping to try and sell without all the expense etc of using an agent.
I have a friend who has done it before who can help me with the paperwork side of things.
My question is, how can I find a buyer without an agent?
I was thinking about asking the owner of the house next door if he is interested as he is an investor.Does anyone have any good ideas for me?
I would appreciate any feedback.Thanks
Tanya [exhappy]
Hi Tanya,
What state is the property?
You can list it on owner.com.au and sell it privately. I would only do this if you are confident in your sales skills as the money you might save not paying a REA may be lost in not getting as much exposure to the market and getting less for it.
hmmmmmmmmmmm. that is a very good point about possibly losing money.
it is a pretty nice house but the previous tenants did some damage and a pretty average patch and paint job was done on some of the walls.
floorboards need resanding and polishing.
everything else was fixed up pretty well with my landlords insurance and some sacraficed weekends.
my plan was to move back into the house and do it up a bit to get more money but the previous tenants are very nasty characters and i just don’t feel safe there. (they still visit their druggie mates on the same street!)
i think my insurance company is seeking recovery from them so i’m keeping a low profile.
i bought the property 6.5 years ago so stand to make money anyway, but yeah, might be sacraficing a bit.
i’m thinking of the idea of getting my bro in law to do some work to the house but don’t want to put the tenants out. they did agree in the contract to allow access for maintenance as needed but did not have the idea of selling back then.
I just want it out of my hair but i don’t want to lose too much!I will check out that website, thanks for that
Tanya
One idea to market your property is to do like a REA and drop flyers to everyone in your street. People often like to buy properties close by (not something i would personally do) also your neighbours may have friends or family that they want to move into the neighbourhood.
The other thing i would suggest when you market your property is time all your advertising to start within 3 or 4 days really explode it on to the market. Then if you are going to have a open home don’t let anyone through prior to you first one. Or alternatively if you don’t have open homes then try to schedule viewings close together or so they overlap. This creates less hassle for you and your tenants and hopefully create some competition between your buyers.
Oh and i forget to mention
GOOD LUCK
JoshHi Tancas. We did this ourselves once, in NSW, after having our home for 3 mths with an agent that was useless once we had listed, just wnated to have open houses all the time, and whose staff turned out to have the charisma of a car washing sponge, so if you are even the remotest bit enthusiastic about your home, I’m sure you will be fine. Again, the proceedure depends what state you are in, and I would strongly recommend using a solicitor for the paperwork to ensure it ges through properly when the big day comes (or a good conveyencer if legal in your state) Now…..All we did, was make up a website, with lots of pictures, (outside/inside/yard, night and day etc with the title ‘Nice Family home for sale’, and then ran two adds in two newspapers. (One local, one in the next town -much larger place) The adds were about 2 inches high, 2 colums wide, and simply mentioned the home description, our price, that it was a genuine sale, and directed them ‘See www …..etc for details and pictures’. We also made up a small sign for the front, but it was a cul de sac, so likely did not serve much purpose. The litle bit of money spent there is worthwhile. We had around 9 personal inspections, compared to 4 from the RE. Bit stressful, but so is being with an RE. In the end, it sold to someone out of town, that would not have known about it if not listed in their paper, and out of the other 2 that ‘nearly’ bought it, one of them was not local either. I should point out too, it was a very nice property, on an acre, and well above the median price for the area….If you can do it, go for it. (……and don’t be too greedy – [biggrin] ) All the best.[strum]
If you do not feel safe there because of the previous tenants, plus the skill and time that a good real estate agent will invest into your property, I would strongly consider paying the 2.5% for the agent.
To find a good agent you may want to go to some of them as if you were looking for property. You will very quickly get a feel for them. Then ask the good ones for an appraisal on your house.
But if you feel really confident, do what paybac and V8ghia have suggested. And I would always get proper valuation done by a licensed valuer. It will be $250 extremely well spent, as you know what your bottom line is.
Good luck
Hi Tanya – I think you can do it yourself, learn a lot and save a bundle in the process; 2.5 – 3% of the average Sydney price (can’t remember what it is, say about $500K) is over $12.5K. Wow – for sticking a couple of ads in the paper, a big sign out the front and showing people through your house.
I’m not sure where your property is but we did this about a year and half ago with our Semi in Sydney. We paid $300 for a big yellow ‘FOR SALE’ sign out the front (which is a must – we had about 4or5 leads from this), we advertised in the sydney morning herald and a couple of the Chinese nespapers around Chatswood and we dressed smartly and showed people through the house by appointment.
We adopted a no-nonsense professional approach but told interetsted parties it was ours and we were selling it ourselves. I think most people liked the fact they were dealing with the owners. You can tell them a whole lot more about the property than an agent can. We had a strategy for closing the price with the prospects and didn’t stuff them around. They knew exactly what we were after and haggled accordingly. I think you can come unstuck if you pussyfoot around with the buyers. If they know you’re not a seasoned REA they try to take advantage; and if you don’t come back strong everybody gets confused with the dealing process. Have a plan and an amount in mind and stick to it.
Have a chat to a few agents before you decide to give it a go. At the very least they’ll give you an idea of how the whole process is conducted. Get a valuation done. Average out what the REAs have told you and the valuation. Read a couple of books on how to sell your own place. Be honest with the buyers and just tell them what they want to know – don’t waffle.
Give it a go and if it doesn’t work you’re only out of pocket a little – whereas if it does work you stand to learn heaps and keep the commision. Good Luck.
The fear of ‘getting less than you could have’ is one agents use all the time to make vendors feel uncertain of themselves.
This annoys me. If an agent sells your place for $10k less than it was worth, they stand to lose $250 of their commission. You stand to lose $9750. It is not in their interest to get you the best price, it is in their interests to sell it as quickly as possible.
I’ve even been ‘sprayed’ by an agent before after declining to sell through them – i.e. having them call me and tell me “…that I could’ve gotten more and its too late for you now”.
Adam
dah! silly me sorry house is in south australia.
thanks for the tips, from what you’ve all said it doesn’t sound like it shouldn’t be too much of a headache to do it without an agent.
Yeah being ‘sprayed’ like that would really tick me off too Adam!
I was thinking if I used an agent I would go thru Vendor Rep, like a broker for REA.
But will give it a bit of a bash by myself first.
Yes I definitely need to get a valuation done. I am thinking it is worth about 200 to 220,000 but haven’t bought or even looked much at the market for about 3 years so I could be a bit off!Thank you everyone for your feedback, it is invaluable!
Tanya
Tanya I would ask the neighbour, however you can advertise the house yourself in either the main press or local paper depending on the area you are in. I have sold two houses privatley this way and used an agent to sell another property. Really depends on circumstances and the property, in some instances the agent could pay for themselves by achieving a higher price than you could achieve on your own. If you do it yourself be careful to get your paperwork correct to avoid pitfalls and use the services of a good conveyencer or solicitor.
Hello Tanya
My name is Andrew Blachut. I own a mobile real estate agency called PropertyNow.
I just read your post , about how you might save on costs, by selling your property without an agent.
We specialise in helping people to sell their own home.
We aren’t the only business out there that helps you to sell diy but we are one of the very few who are more than just a marketing ( website ) company.
We actually put our Private Selling clients on the 2 largest websites in the country and take enquiry for them plus signeage etc if desired.
There are other companies that do something similar and if you contact me I can give you a list of around 10 of them but as I mentioned, I think we are the only one with such a powerful option.
There is one proviso and that is that at this point we can only assist those whose properties are in NSW and Queensland….doesn’t matter where you live however as long as the property is in those 2 states.
I won’t mention which websites we place you on ( there are 4 ) but you might guess.
Within the next few days we will also be instituting an even lower cost do it yourself option.
You can get a free copy of my private selling ebook at our site, just click on the book image on the frontpage
.
I will place a link to my free Private Selling ebook inside this forum but only after I am given permission to do so. I think it will be of benefit to people who use the forum.I would be pleased to answer any questions you have about selling without an agent, Just post your question in here or contact me. Good luck in your efforts.
Cheers and Happy New Year
Andrew
Great post above, Adam
I agree 100% with you about the real estate agent fear tactic. The one you illustrated is one of many that are used.
By the way Tanya, I got down to your later post and noticed your home is in SA.. We will offer a more basic version of our private seller option in all states sooner rather than later. The new Private Seller package we are working on will allow you to diy sell with us but to a more limited degree in SA.. We just won’t be able to place you on the national sites we normally use .
Once again good luck
PS I would love to include some stories about people who have sold their own home in the next update to my ebook. If anybody in the forum would like to write their diy selling experiences down ( both good and bad ) and send it to me… I will put it in the book.
Andrew
http://www.usellproperty.com.Hi there,
I have a success story from Perth. My husband and I had an agent to sell our house for 4 months. He brought us three contract 30000 under the asking price. Well you can only imagine what we told him to do with the offers. His commission was still to stay the same no matter what the final selling price was. So we decided to sell the house privately through Comfree. You pay under 800 for the use of their signs, advertising on the net, newspaper and a weekly booklet that’s disbirsed to the pubic. Within 2 weeks we had an offer 40,000 above what the agent had it for and with no commission. It is easy when i come to sell my investment I will use them again. Have a look in SA to see if they have anythimg like Confree here. Good Luck [exhappy]
Well done Nat
Would you permit me to use your story in my ebook about private selling? Your story is somewhat typical of many I have heard especially when the market isn’t booming and agents are finding it tough going.
At the end of the day, the commission will always colour their jugement no matter how ethical and good hearted they may be.
There are many good agents but believe me they don’t have superman capes and there is nothing they can do that you can’t….. so long as you have the right tools and attitude.
I have sold over 300 homes…… and yet I am still waiting to actually sell the first one. The house always sells itself at the end of the day. There have been a few times when my words or attitude to the house helped sell it but it’s a very rare occasion when someones ( a salesmans ) words will cause anybody to spend $300,000, if they weren’t already going to anyway.
In fact out of the many offers I’ve taken, invariably in those few times when I felt I had positively moved someone to buy that really didn’t want to……. ie actually SOLD to them……..they rescinded more often than not.
Lets face it. Even cults need days, weeks or months to convince people to do what they wouldn’t normally do, or to think what they wouldn’t think. To kid ourselves that agents ( with a few well chosen magical words ) can cause someone to buy ….is rubbish 99 times out of 100.
What I am trying to say is that Houses sell Houses – agents just take the credit.
What they do have that private sellers don’t , is an enquiry mechanism. But as myself and others have mentioned in the forum, there are companies out there that can fix that for you now.
Again if you have a private selling story please let me know if I can include it in my ebook. Stories like those of Ruf and v8ghia are great and I would love to include them in my ebook.
Andrew Blachut
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