Browse Forums Real Estate 1 Aug 18, 2010 2:40 pm An update on our potential selling of our apartment journey…I'm putting this in a new thread so it might get read quicker than being lost in an existing old thread of mine. lol Prices are so up and down in our local area and nothing seems to be selling (3 months is incredibly quick to sell around here, and 6-12 months is normal it seems…prices for VERY similar apartments to our’s in terms of style, layout, size and quality range from $329,000 to $385,000 and none are moving), so we were just waiting for…something. Some sort of push (like if we found something we fell in love with to buy), or a sign of some sort, that would cause us to be more enthused about selling sooner rather than later, and to take the risk of jumping in “blind”. On Friday I came home from work at saw a big sign on our front building wall, saying AUCTION – 2 bedroom bargain! And I was like, ooooh!! I went online right away to try and find out which apartment it was, what it looked like, etc, but nothing was on. STILL nothing is online, even on the real estate’s own website. GRRR! SO frustrating! The auction is on 16 September. They have 3 weekends to have open inspections if they wish to, so they better start advertising soon, I say!! Anyway, so my partner was negative about this. She thought it would ruin our own chances of a good sale. But not me. I was excited. I think it’s all good, because it’s the most accurate indication of what our own place could possibly achieve if we tried to sell it any time soon. If there’s a lot of interest in the one for auction, and it sells at auction for a good price, then this is GREAT for us. And if there’s no interest, or it gets passed in and then shows up for a price of say, $320,000, then clearly it’s not a good time to sell right now for us either, but either way, we will at least KNOW. Anyway, so we emailed the agents who we had that meeting with several weeks ago who we MIGHT consider selling through whenever that may be, to see if they could find out anything more about the place that’s for auction (and also so they wouldn’t think we’d gone behind their backs or something and were auctioning our own property, lol). I also emailed the agent in charge of the auction property to get in and see what it’s like, to give us a more accurate idea of how it compares to our’s. So then the agents came over to “chat”, and blah, blah, they proposed if we wanted to (which we’re unsure of), we could kind of use the other property’s advertising and “piggy-back” off it to gauge interest on our own property at the same time. Like, when they have open inspections, we do too, but instead of putting our own ad in the paper, we just put an ad on realestate.com.au, and a sign out the front of our place so when people come to inspect the auction property, they’ll also (hopefully) inspect our’s as well. The auction property is apparently 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom, and smaller than our’s. We’re 2 and 2. The agents said we wouldn’t put a price at all on our’s for now, cause then it’d kind of make it worse for us and potentially better for the auction property. So…our concerns are these, and if anyone is still actually reading this novel, I’d love any advice you may have… 1. There are only 3 more weekends left to have open inspections. IF the auction place even HAS any in the first place, which they may not. Nothing is online yet, which I find somewhat odd and annoying. 2. The agents suggested getting a professional photographer to take pics of our place for the realestate.com.au ad, which is all good, but how much would this cost? (they’re going to send an email with their basic package cost for us soon) Also, we have SO much stuff, as I’ve already mentioned…we don’t know if it’d be worth getting a storage container for a month (about $100 plus insurance) to try and quickly de-clutter to get photos done, in time to have our ad ready for these 3 weekend open inspections (again, IF they even HAVE open house inspections!) 3. We’d also have to put our cats in the cattery each weekend, which also costs $100 per weekend. 4. The agents said in order to list a place with no price whatsoever, it has to be listed as an auction. So we’d do that, but then obviously never actually go to auction (unless we wanted to for some reason). Is this normal?? It seems rude to buyers in a way…it’d annoy ME to see a place for sale online and open and stuff, with no price, and then it just suddenly disappears without a trace? 5. I’d be concerned that we’d somehow damage our chances of selling later on if we got no interest now. Like, if our ad appears 6-12 months down the track, and people go “Oh, we saw that before. OLD NEWS!” and disregard it. Could that happen? The agents said it wouldn’t… HELP! lol How the hell did I become a senior member!? I know nothing! Re: To "test the water"...? 2Aug 18, 2010 3:41 pm Hi graceslick, Just a couple of thoughts I had in relation to your concerns ....(not in any particular order!) 1. Why not leave the cats? We sold our house recently our cat was always sleeping on the beds during the open houses .... I don't think that's a problem .... 2. Definately declutter - I'd put $$ towards this before I spent $$ in putting the cats in the cattery 3. I guess competition is good if your place is better than the other one that's for sale, otherwise I'd definately avoid selling at the same time ..... 4. I would definately advertise with a price - otherwise people just mightn't look. I wouldn't .... 5. 6 months seems like an awfully long sales time! Down here most RE agents do 4 weeks of opens then an auction on the 4th Saturday .... if a house was hanging around for 6 months I'd be wondering what was wrong with it! I do understand that the market is a bit different here in Melbourne though. Good luck! Building on an acre in Macedon ......one day. Re: To "test the water"...? 3Aug 18, 2010 6:02 pm No wonder some people from interstate think we're a bit weird to be SO against buying a place before selling our own! If we could be fairly sure our's would sell in 4 weeks, well, we'd have no issues with buying first!!! But up here, seriously, things just SIT. The agents blab on about how the sellers are "desperate" to sell, they've bought elsewhere, etc, they NEED to sell in 2 days, or hurry in, this property won't last, and so on...and in our old place which we were renting, the agents were selling while we were still there, and they said it'd be sold in one week so we wouldn't need to worry or be too inconvenienced. HAH! We KNEW that would never happen, and it didn't of course. It never sold. And there's nothing wrong with most of these places. Or nothing MORE wrong than some I've seen in other places (Melb, Syd, Bris, etc). Even the ones that to me seem good value and good quality, size and location, they just do not sell. Anyway, yes, the cats...the reasons we'd put them in the cattery is cause (1) We've been advised by every agent we've ever met and all the TV shows about this sort of thing that it's best to not have pets around during open home inspections. (2) The cats are indoor only (there are 2 of them) and we can't have them getting out. Obviously the building's glass door will be propped open, as will our front door and the balcony / patio doors, and so they could easily just run away. This is the main reason. (3) When they're here, so too must their litter trays be, and they're not really very attractive to look at or smell. (the trays themselves don't smell, but if a cat happens to USE the tray during the open house, well...STENCH HOUSE it will be called by those occupying it at that moment!!) LOL Our place isn't big enough that we can shut them in one room and nobody would notice that they can't access one particular room, and also the room with the trays in it (bathroom / laundry combined) isn't big enough that the trays wouldn't be noticeable. They fit in the only spare spaces we have in there. Also there's the cat's scratching posts and beds and stuff. Also some people don't like pets so may not be comfortable having cats running around everywhere. lol. But yes, the main point is that they'd be able to get out, which we can't let happen. Yes, having no price listed is annoying...but if it's an auction, well...it's fairly normal around here to just have NO price whatsoever with auctions. I know in Melb for example (where I'm from originally), most sales are done by auction and this is standard, and they all have a price guide. Usually in my experience that guide is kinda crap in terms of any real accuracy, but at least it's a GUIDE. Up here, they usually put NO guide whatsoever, which is very frustrating but it's normal, as I said, for auctions up here. Most places aren't sold at auction up here. Only the rich places sometimes, or unusual properties, or I guess people wanting to gauge the market or something. Yeah, de-cluttering...we won't get time to do that before the first open house inspection this weekend (I found out when it's on, so we'll be going there to check it out!!!! If it's a gorgeous big apartment and our's isn't as impressive, clearly all of these concerns are out the window as we won't be doing anything right now!! lol)...but you know what? The property is STILL not being advertised online or even on Ray White's website!!! Surely they'd put it on THEIR own website, even if the owner didn't want it on the other sites, right? Weird. I don't want to be "piggy-backing" on ZERO advertising!!! How the hell did I become a senior member!? I know nothing! Re: To "test the water"...? 4Aug 21, 2010 6:30 pm Well! I'm very glad we decided not to go ahead with the "piggy-backing" off Ray White's advertising and open houses for the auction of the apartment in our building. We suddenly realised, on top of our other concerns, that my partner's mum is coming to stay the weekend before the auction, and so that'd mean another weekend out for having a "piggy-backed" open house. So...just not worth it. The auction sign outside our place has been up since last Friday...it is now the following SATURDAY and there is STILL no online advertising at all, not even on their own specific website! Even when you go on their site and click on what's open for inspection this weekend, there are NO properties open through Ray White for this area at all, and yet...the property IS open. 12-12.45pm both days. But nobody knows about it unless they walk by the sign. HOW STUPID IS THAT!? Oh, sorry, no. I'm wrong. It WAS listed in the paper. A little ad, TOTALLY out of its proper section! My suburb is Chevron Island. So logically you'd put the ad in C, between B and D, right? OR some places list it as Surfers Paradise, as Chevron's kind of a sub-suburb of Surfers. So then it could be in S. But no. It was in NEITHER of these sections. It was right at the end, amongst Varsity Lakes and Mermaid Waters. Absolutely NO logical place for it!! So. I think we made the right choice. We're going to see what it looks like inside tomorrow, and I'll report more then. How the hell did I become a senior member!? I know nothing! Re: To "test the water"...? 5Aug 23, 2010 4:32 pm Well, it's finally online now, and I must say, the photos are fairly nice but make it look smaller than it does in real life. We had a look on Sunday, and only 2 other people came through during the 45 minutes it was open. Not sure about Saturday. The agent mentioned 4 groups. Anyway, it's all renovated, though not to MY personal taste...but it is very nice looking. Again, it looks nicer in person than the photos convey. It's exactly the same as our's in terms of size (I think) and layout, except it's a mirror image and has a view and smaller balconies as it's on the top floor. So. Now we just wait for the auction results!!! *impatient* How the hell did I become a senior member!? I know nothing! Re: To "test the water"...? 6Aug 25, 2010 6:29 pm grace_slick Well, it's finally online now, and I must say, the photos are fairly nice but make it look smaller than it does in real life. We had a look on Sunday, and only 2 other people came through during the 45 minutes it was open. Not sure about Saturday. The agent mentioned 4 groups. Anyway, it's all renovated, though not to MY personal taste...but it is very nice looking. Again, it looks nicer in person than the photos convey. It's exactly the same as our's in terms of size (I think) and layout, except it's a mirror image and has a view and smaller balconies as it's on the top floor. So. Now we just wait for the auction results!!! *impatient* do you have a link to your property so we can all see?? Re: To "test the water"...? 7Aug 26, 2010 2:03 pm Oh, it’s not my property. As I said, it’s another apartment in my building. Here’s the link to it though! http://www.realestate.com.au/property-a ... -106773807 How the hell did I become a senior member!? I know nothing! Re: To "test the water"...? 9Aug 26, 2010 4:06 pm Oh, you know, SOOO many ads around here have that on it. Almost every single ad has either... "DESPERATE SELLER!" "SELLER BOUGHT ELSEWHERE, NEEDS TO SELL TODAY!" "MUST BE SOLD THIS WEEKEND!" "SCREAMING VENDOR SAYS SELL!!" They're ALL made out to be completely desperate as if it's a good thing!! lol The pics of the place also don't really look as good as it does in person. It looks smaller in the pics than it actually is. How the hell did I become a senior member!? I know nothing! ! 10Aug 26, 2010 5:21 pm Several years ago some friends of mine were in a similar position to you ie. they had a property that they were preparing to sell (but had not listed) when another unit came up for auction in the same block. Hence they decided to hold back from signing with any agents until after the auction. Anyway, fast forward several weeks to the auction where there were only two 'serious' bidders and, of course, only one winner. My friends simply approached the couple that lost out and asked them if they would like to look at their property while they were already there. They did, and they loved it! My friends got a higher price than they had anticipated plus saved on commission and the other couple were also very happy - a big win/win for everybody. Good Luck. 'We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.' - Winston Churchill Re: To "test the water"...? 11Aug 27, 2010 9:07 pm Oh my god, this is my DREAM scenario. Believe me, I've gone over it in my head, daydreaming that something like that would happen. Weirdly, about 6 months ago or more, I had a little daydream thing when I was half asleep of a property up on the top floor right on the end of our building coming onto the market, and one day I was walking outside and bumped into a neighbour I'd met once before, who mentioned that property was for sale and how they'd noticed a couple who had looked at it saying, as they walked past our own property, how much they liked it but would prefer "that nice ground floor one". (our's) And then we somehow arranged in this daydream scenario that this couple would buy our place for way more than we'd ever have hoped. Perfect! lol Maybe I'm psychic and this really will happen. I hope so. The unit for sale IS on the top at the end, just like my daydream! lol We are VERY eager for this auction to happen so we can find out more. We have 2 agents going to the auction (the one who's selling the property, and also the other ones who we're THINKING of going with if we sell, MAYBE) to tell us how it goes. How many bidders, what the bids are, if it's passed in, if it sells afterwards or not at all, what the reserve was, etc. It'll also be interesting to see what they each say and if it differs substantially between the 2 agents. All we need is 2 serious bidders and for the losing bidder to like our place enough to be prepared to swap from the top floor, renovated, to ground floor, spruced up but not a modern renovation. How the hell did I become a senior member!? I know nothing! Thanks for your reply. I will just wait and see I guess. Trying to get some more information from our builder. 9 11741 We were lucky in that our old house was so small (86 square metres) compared to the new house, they were able to take enough readings around the old backyard house before… 8 24868 Three options 1 Ask the liquidator 2 Find another PD customer and ask the source of their report 3 Pay for new report 3 6508 |