I often wonder about this. Prices in Sydney for example would be outside of a lot of people's reach so one would need to go to other cities or rural areas to buy a property.
To do so would require a lot of time and effort going back and forth. So how many investors just guy without seeing the property?
If so what did you know about the property and what was your decision framework for making the choice?
We bought an investment property decades ago, in Perth, unseen (not even internet listing then). In fact, we eventually sold it and still had not physically visited it.
Pre-purchase, a friend did a drive-past, and the rental agents gave us a history of maintenance etc., and we just relied on that.
More recently, a friend bought a holiday place unseen, apart from the internet listing. They were happy when they eventually visited it (post-purchase).
If you done a good research, building inspection, talk to a good conveyancer, that would be more sufficient than physically view it I think. There are still people get it wrong even after the physical view.
No, I wouldnt personally
For that sort of $ investment I'd be spending time making sure I'm buying what I think I'm buying… Not what someone else describes.
When we were looking at a weekend property in regional Vic years ago we just spent weekends out and about and while there looked at properties. Few hunge in fuel/accom but i got to see what I was getting not some photoshoped real estate agent photos. They can make any dump look like a mansion.
Buying blind - it may work, or it may cost you 10,000's… or it maybe totally unsuitable
YMMV
lol
YES NO
Actually there's one in Sydney I want to buy! But for the price its a hard ask to buy sight unseen, especially with "areas of interest" that I can't go into.
I do know people doing this for investment purposes. Most I see purchase houses (as opposed to apartments/villas) as easier to repair if an issue occurs, I think an apartment or similar would be a much more difficult risk, or more chance of issues from others. Most people I know will get a mate to do a drive by check first to make sure it at least exists and there isn't anything obvious wrong with foundation, leaks etc.
Other then that, I think they check in that rental income would be high enough that it isn't too bad if they need to build/ship in a home to just land on the spot if worse comes to worse. Also as its investment, most people I know its their 4th property or similar, so they already know what they want to check out for.
This seems insane. Unless I literally had cash to burn and didn't care about losing it - this just seems like a very poor financial decision to make.
The house that I live in was only seen on auction day, does that count? Therefore did not seek legal advice nor get any pest/building reports.
A friend of ours has a "hobby" of buying apartments. She inherited her parents' factory in Singapore just east of Orchard Rd and the family home in the "Toorak" of Singapore just north of Orchard Rd. The factory site now has a 40 storey apartment block on it so that gives you some idea of the value of the block, which I don't know.
About 2 years ago she went to inspect an apartment overlooking the river in Perth CBD. While there, the real estate agent said that the apartment above was also for sale but that it was rented so he would have to contact the tenant to arrange a time for her to inspect it. She said "Don't bother. I'll take them both."
When we visited she mentioned that the first apartment she bought was just up the street. It wasn't clear whether she still owned it.
Last year she was locked down in her apartment in Toorak which is one of her 2 apartments in Melbourne. She wanted to escape so she bought an apartment sight unseen on the river 1km upstream from the CBD in Brisbane. As a "resident" she was allowed to enter QLD with required tests/quarantine.
She has since bought 2 townhouses in a complex to the north of the city centre in Brisbane, one sight unseen for the same reason as in Perth.
Once she moved into one of the townhouses she noticed that there was a house for sale a few houses up which she liked, so she bought that too.
She also has apartments in Singapore, London and New York and the family home in Perth. All apartments are left empty except when friends visit to stay.
We have stayed at the apartments in LON, MEL (both) and SIN. Looking forward to visiting NYC and BRI.
I am her unpaid technical advisor. A "friend with (non-sexual) benefits" like these always gets priority service.
Weird flex but okay.
What is your friends obsession with apartments? Doesn't like a normal house?
She uses the apartments as "bait" on home share websites so pre-Covid she spent her time travelling the world staying in swap accommodation.
She goes on long distance bike (eg along Danube) and walking (eg Cape to Cape and the Camino to Santiago de Compostela) expeditions, canal boating and campervan touring.
She is 69 and single but she's not interested in having a partner in case you thought she was a good catch.
Bought a Property without Ever Having Seen It
yes if you consider buying off the plan.
Yes, the one I am in now
You have the seller's website with all the pretty pictures
You can check the weather patterns on several weather sites
You have Google Earth for a streets eye view & what not
It saves you travelling to another state just to check out a house, and this was b4 CV-19
I just got the vibe of the house & I bought it, but you can't tell what the neighbours are like thou
Bought 3 investment properties without looking
Personally no for me I would never do it but plenty of others do and it usually happened during the market boom because FOMO kicked in and plenty of speculators enter the market. It all comes down to your risk tolerant some are willing to takes more risk than other
also some people has a lot of spare cash through inheritance or business boom so if they bought something unseen and it turn out a dud it not going to affect them financially
but if this would affect you financially then it would be a high risk decision
but eventually the market force usually very good at sorting out the investors from the speculators through market down turn, crash and asset price correction.
Never. Hope that helps ;(