Hi Y’all. I live in an area where an enormous percentage of real estate purchasers are first-generation immigrants from China, or their children.
Therefore I need to keep their tastes at front of mind.
I will employ a Real Estate Agent and a home stager who are of Chinese lineage.
Other than the numbers thing, what things I should consider?
For example, there is a lot of bird life in my area, and I encourage the birds to visit my yard. Would this be a problem?
Also the agents range from very young ladies to very mature men. In the Chinese culture would mature buyers prefer to talk with a more mature agent or a gender preference?
Any other suggestions please?
Advice Please on Selling Real Estate to People of Chinese Descent
Peck on 08/02/2020 - 23:50
Comments
Are pandas unlucky?
Yes, I once saw a property with an $888,888 type price and I thought "I'd bet that they would rather pay $777,777"
My cousin sold their house (they’re first generation Chinese descent), and they sold it for $1000888 to another Asian family (passed it at auction, negotiated with them)
wow 444 Main Street BIG NO (in Mandarin 4 sounds like die)
@ToTheMoon /r/whoosh
Lol
This absolute help, Damn, Son
Get more lucky bamboo in your house and yard.
Don’t leave Corona beer bottles around.
or dirty facemasks in the bedroom
Where should he leave them?
In the kitchen
Fengshui is important - sometimes they ask why the owner is selling - they tend to avoid sellers who are in a bad financial circumstances (say owner is not doing well probably because the house is bad)?
Avoid No. 4. Ensure that the house is advertised as “practical” - something grand and big is what the Chinese descent look for (so that they can show off to their relatives). School zones and potential for future development / value growth are important factors too.
Any other suggestions please?
To be honest, stop pandering. Apart from employing an REA who speaks Chinese, anything more you do will just appear like you're trying too hard to attract Chinese buyers. It's like when you're in Asia as a westerner you'll want to avoid anything that seems to be targeting westerners. Chinese buyers are smart enough to cut through the BS straight away. As the first poster implies, Chinese buyers are astute, not dimwits you can manipulate by rearranging your furniture in certain ways.
Chinese buyers are astute, not dimwits
But still make sure the evil spirits aren't floating around at the open home incase they decide to start acting up in mandarin and cause a scene.
Yep, I had no intention of pandering or manipulating. I have a feeling that in the Chinese culture respect is a very important thing but I know little about that in their culture. For example, they may not feel that a very young agent would have the years of wisdom to trust what he/she says. Also I believe that having Chinese speaking agents is very important. The stager will stage the property for all sorts of buyers, not just Chinese.
I think you're a little misguided about the modern Chinese property buyer. I used to work in property valuation (commercial) and we dealt with a lot of Chinese people and businesses.
The modern Chinese property buyer (especially those currently in China) are not the same as the Chinese immigrants who came here 50 years ago. They are no longer the mostly working-class Chinese buyers who fled to Australia to avoid communism - this generation of Chinese immigrants tended to not be business-oriented, many were very poor and most didn't have a college education. They tended to buy properties based on their emotions (e.g. things like Fengshui).
Chinese buyers now, especially those who are actually buying directly from China, are well educated, astute businessmen who have beaten all of their competitors to get to where they are today. They didn't get there by relying on fairytales or Fengshui, they got there because of their business acumen and because they're hard negotiators. If you want to attract these buyers, you need to present your property as good value and forget all of the Fengshui/respect and whatever nonsense because you're pandering to the wrong crowd. If you want to sell to Chinese buyers, you need to be prepared to negotiate as hard as them.
I think that you have read a lot more into my post than was intended. No plans for Fengshui, no plans for trickery, no plans for pandering. I think that HighAndDry and ToTheMoon below have a handle on what I was getting at.
No plans for Fengshui, no plans for trickery, no plans for pandering.
Then just list your property - why focus on the Chinese aspect? The fact that you are going out of your way to try and appease a certain culture of buyer is pandering. My point is that nobody likes it when other people pander like that.
Dunno, I've seen ridiculously atrocious designer sh*t some have bought. Some things that cost more than a median house in Melb. A lot is emotional purchasing.
" I encourage the birds to visit my yard"
Name checks out.
Get young women. Have hot water ready. Provide good soup. Paint your house red. Have chinese flags in the yard. Provide face masks. Use the "study xi" propaganda app. Show your loyalty.
Chinese people are still people.
Are there things that all white people like, from Millennials to old rich men? Maybe, but they'd be very generic stuff.
Same with Chinese people - individuals are still going to have individual preferences.
BUT, having said that, and very much generalising here:
More 'square' and orthodox layouts and rooms, rather than strangely shaped or 'natural' spaces, (rich Chinese may be an exception here)
Ease of maintenance, perhaps less hedges and bushes, more simple lawns, (again, rich Chinese may be an exception)
Sunlight. Younger Chinese might be familiar with the concept of things being too hot because of too much sun being bad, but first gen/recent immigrants literally will not - the more sunlight the better.
Fanciness and shininess, though this might be hit and miss, but most Chinese will not care about the 'heritage' value, or 'character' of an older property.
I coincidently fall in your target group. Where are you? How much is the house? I will ask around my friends.
For your concerns:
I will employ a Real Estate Agent and a home stager who are of Chinese lineage.
In my opinion, this is unnecessary. I've been a lot of inspection with my friends and I think most people like me and my friends have a similar taste to local people. People are impressed by the good stuff, not simply the stuff they have seen in their home country.
Other than the numbers thing, what things I should consider?
For example, there is a lot of bird life in my area, and I encourage the birds to visit my yard. Would this be a problem?
Also the agents range from very young ladies to very mature men. In the Chinese culture would mature buyers prefer to talk with a more mature agent or a gender preference?- Find an agent who speaks Chinese. Not all young people speak English well.
- The agent for your sale should be like 30 - 40 years old, not too young but will not make your potential buyers think they are too old like their uncle.
- Gender does not really matter
- Bird - maybe not. If I was buying the house, I may worry about cleaning bird drops and think it is not safe drying clothes in the sun in my yard.
Feel free to ask more questions.
Thanks, very constructive. There are not many places like mine sold in the area, and so I will go to Auction to test the market.
Hey ToTheMoon, plse open up your private conversation feature.
Hi Peck. It's done. Text me your question haha
Peck, you may need to speak with Big Bird because the birds are unionised.
You wanna fill the house with the smell of freshly cooked sweet and sour pork, hang up some posters of Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan, and display your collection of fireworks and Xiaomi battery packs
If you don't have the sweet and sour pork, you can brew up a pot of TCM and hang up acupuncture charts in the living room.
… hanging smoked ducks in the front windows wouldn’t go astray.
OMFG LMFAOO
Someone I know well is a young property developer (Eastern Suburbs who got a head start). Anyways, he hired an agent who spoke Mandarin, helped selling quite a few units that he had built.
His car actually sold a unit as well lol. He pulled up in his Bentley, some Chinese family was looking at the unit, asked the agent who that young person was. The agent answered that's the guy that developed the block of units, the father was like "a bit showoffy". Agent without missing a beat responded; "wouldn't you rather buy a unit from someone driving a Bentley or someone driving a Hilux?"
They ended up buying the unit. Basically, park a GLE or a GLS or a X5 out front or go full baller and park a Bentley Bentuyuga lolCorrelation is not causation.
Nor anecdotes. :)
Wow. I would think the Bentley guy just trying to rip me off. I’m Caucasian. TBH I don’t think the car really matters. The richest people I personally know worth hundreds of millions of dollars don’t buy flashy cars. Cars are a depreciating asset so nearly all of their money is tied up in asset classes that make money not lose it. It puzzles me why re agents think they need showy cars. I don’t really like it. Again it feels like I’m getting ripped off by them just so they can afford showy cars. I’d prefer to buy from the Hilux developer guy as long as I felt he was proud of his work. The Bentley is not very good for doing any work during the development of the property. Therefore, the Bentley guy has to always pay someone else to do small errands during development.
Most people with above average cars don't actually own them - they are a lease.
Reminds me of when I was working for a newspaper in New Zealand years and had to type in (yes, back in the days when we used to get stuff faxed or mailed to us) the car reviews from a local journo. At one point he and he famiily were house hunting so when he pulled up at an open home in a flash new top of the range Merc etc, the REA's eyes would light up LOL.
Yep, Sam Walton drove a pickup truck (a Ford F-150 from 1979 until he died in 1992).
Put up some flyers on Christmas Island.
I recently purchased a new car from Sydney. It was advertised with 777 in the price.
Did you pay the $777 or bargain it down?
Bargained of course👍
Just make it as tawdry as possible, really ham it up.
There seems to be a constant competition within the market between the boomers and the Chinese - who can have the most kitschy house as possible.
Check they are allowed to own Australian property? Or is that something nobody really checks prior to purchase?
Is it Burwood? lol
People like you got rid of my lebo mates from the area.The subject at hand inspired me to do a little research. This is a recent video I found on YouTube.
Wondered what others might think… here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXuoRpPJE6k
Nope, not much truth to it since a majority of Chinese employ within their own enclaves. If anything they are creating their own jobs so that they don't have to take your jobs. If the market is asking for translation services and niche, why are we trying to break the free market model. There is no reason why the True Blue Aussie can't go learn a few different languages or have a translator on hire. The fact is they won't, that's why they die. You only need to hire one Chinese person and have the rest of your team as True Blue Aussies. Sometimes that important fact is lost in the dispute.
You basically can't find a job outside of the "asian" networks anyway because of how Australia is setup. If they changed that then it would be much easier for everyone to hire everyone else. Notice how rare it is to find non-Indian/South Asian working at Nandos. It's the same thing. They aren't taking your jobs, they are making their own. In fact a lot of them are doing ubereats. It's a new service creating new jobs rather than an old service taking old jobs away from Aussies.
Even if you stopped migration tomorrow and sent all the Chinese back, you'll still have the problem with technology now making jobs irrelevant. There have been a lot of government jobs cut, mostly Australians taking away jobs from other Australians. That's how I see it. A lot of things like Holden deciding to close. That's all driven by decisions of other Aussies.
Make sure your house is not directly facing a T junction. According to Feng Shui all your good fortunes will spill out of the house. Likewise, if there is a wall that faces the front door upon opening, you’ll need to knock it down as it’s bad Feng Shui, blocking free spirits and prosperity.
Make sure your house is not directly facing a T junction.
This. If you are in this most unfortunate position, get a builder to rotate your house 45, 90 or even 180 degrees (your front door would then be facing the backyard).
If this proves to be too expensive, just ask your local council to build a 3-metre high brick wall across the T junction.
All potential Chinese buyers will then be non the wiser that all the house‘s good spirits are long gone, having already escaped out the front door and disappeared up the adjacent street, leaving just the bad luck spirits behind.
88 Ni Hao Avenue, Xie Xie Town
For example, there is a lot of bird life in my area, and I encourage the birds to visit my yard. Would this be a problem?
What are you doing to encourage this? Personally I like this, but I get the impression the majority don't. I know the rest of my Asian family don't. They'd get put off by the idea of having to get rid of these birds, cleaning bird droppings, stagnant water attracting mosquitoes, flowers attracting bees, cutting back branches before they fall etc.
Most people like the idea of having land and garden, without any desire to do the maintenance.
"Most people like the idea of having land and garden, without any desire to do the maintenance."
This. Both my modern chinese neighbours love the sight of plants and flowers but don't like any gardening or having to water them. They like minimal maintenance yards, preferably paved.
Do not like signs of pets in house. They like pets, just their own. Maybe put a fish tank and some fresh flowers in vase. Nothing painted black or anything religious (crosses on walls, pic of Christ etc). Display your kids photos, they like that too.
Some like things that mimic 'grand', depends on your decor though, just no shabby chic. Oh and at all times, the house must be bright and airy, so open curtains, switch on lights.
Also mobility aids and assisted living equipment preferably be stowed away, eg. walking stick, wheelchair etc.
You should concrete the backyard and the pathways. That's one of the most important things for a Chinese Buyer. They want a low maintenance house.
You could have a Panda act as your agent on a property on 444 Main Street with the front door aligned to the back door with evil sprits floating in the lounge room, if the price is right Chinese will buy.