Hi All,
We purchased an investment property in Glen Waverley (South Eastern Suburb in Melbourne) in 2016 and had plans to knockdown and rebuild - Due to increase in constructions costs and several other factors we are looking to sell the property privately. Has anyone sold the property without the real estate agent ? If yes, how were you able to do it ?
P.S - Not in financial stress so happy to hold if required but want to sell privately or off market !
Plenty of people do it, you can list on the online property sites (you have to pay a higher fee than the agents but you can check out what the fees are).
Just copy what the agents do, take photos, put them up, description of the property, the selling points etc. You have seen 100 of these.
Obviously you need to figure out a price
Then you need to figure out how you will do an open house - may be visit a few run by agents and see how they do it. You might not want to take down everyone's name but you at least must have your contact details available.
Thats the side of getting the property in front of potential buyers
You then have your seller obligations, I dont know what you need to do in Vic but you might need a contract prepared etc. That doesnt change with or without an agent.
Most of the work of the agents, other than the leg work of dealing with potential buyers, is negotiating with buyers. That is now up to you. Think gumtree but with bigger numbers.
If you find a buyer you will need to sort out who holds the deposit etc. Your lawyer/conveyancer can assist.
Basically an agent does 2 things - knows how to market and knows how to negotiate. They might do it badly or well, but thats really all their job is and what you pay them for. If you want to sell without an agent then you have to take on these responsibilities. They arent hard at a general level (eg you know you need photos, you know people will low ball or play games). But it can be hard when it comes to the details (what makes a good photo, how hard to you push, how do you negotiate).
You will get agents ringing you up offering to act for you, so be prepared to tell them to go away
If you just want to sell to someone you know without any public advertising, then you just need a contract through your lawyer.
There are probably threads on property forums that you can read through
Only thing i disagree on here is the statement that an agent does 2 things (market and negotiate) and thats all their job is.
80%+ of their job is actually in finding more work for themselves ie new sellers. You unfortunately have to pay this and its reflected in their commission.
thats their job once they are hired - their job for you
Everyone and every business markets and you pay for that marketing. Thats part of life. Some marketing is low key, some businesses make high levels of small sales and others make small levels of big sales; the latter has to do a lot more marketing (as a proportion of time) than the former.
16 years ago my brother wanted to sell his house in inner melb.
It was 1870s workers cottage. there are rows of identical ones in his suburb.
One went for auction in the next street.
My brother attended the auction and observed who was bidding.
When the auction finished he approached the second highest bidder. (a young couple -similar age to my brother and his wife)
He introduced himself and said he had an identical house in the next street that he was wanting to sell and invited them to visit with then.
So the bidders went with my brother to his place and had a through inspection, a few beers, etc. and they agreed to buy my brothers place then and there. (condition report - my brother had recently done extensive renovations and had photos, records, plans, receipts for trade professionals -i.e. sparky rewiring, etc)
Those second highest bidders obviously wanted to buy a house (because they had just bid) and obviously had finances ready to go. my brother knew their budget and what they were happy to bid (from their bid) ; which was cheaper than what the winning bid had been for an identical place.
My brother saved on real estate agent fees. he sold his house quickly, he knew (from attending the auction) what the sale price would be agreed to by the buyers and was satisfied. He had a conveyancer help with the contract /sale and it was done
it was a real win-win
High Five your brother from me for having awesome initiative.
This was a brilliant idea.
I'll tell you a secret , I could not be (profanity) typing it out again
Pay a photographer. They will do things you would never think of or even be able to do without equipment, like place remote controlled speed lights in rooms so when they take a photo of the hallway or anywhere in the house the adjacent rooms look well lit instead of dark and dank like it actually looks all the time.
For sale by owners , where you list with 0% commission agent like PropertyNow or others .. for about $800 to get advertised on realestate.com / domain till sold, whilst you handle all the Ads / contacts / enquiries / appointments / open home / contracts.
REA may say that's just standard Ads that gets shoved all the way back on page 999 with no exposure resulting in low buyer interests and achieve lower than market price compared to their $5000 marketing fee + commission.
Maybe and maybe not, but i call it BS as i had over 50 enquiries from realestate.com on the one i listed through PropertyNow for a few hundred buckeroos.
Yep I did this with my previous house. Got a professional valuation, the ads went on realestate & domain, ran the open houses ourselves and the feedback from potential buyers was very positive with a sale within a couple of weeks. I find the idea of paying $20-40k commission abhorrent given the comparatively low amount of work that goes into it (particularly in a hot market).
Bizarre, I recently bought a house, I looked at newest listed first. When I first started looking I looked at everything for sale in the area. Promoted ads might get more clicks but I doubt they’d be serious buyers.
It’s not Amazon where top listing wins.
Post it on little red book to save on listing fees.
Has anyone sold the property without the real estate agent ? If yes, how were you able to do it ?
Honestly as a 'buyer', I pass on dealing with any listings by For Sale by Owner or Property Now etc, as these sellers are useless. So many owners withhold the address, won't give you a price range or think their place is worth 2x what everyone elses it. Just not worth the hassle as they are first time sellers who have no idea of what to do.
So if you do want to sell it, get a no fuss listing via a REA, don't tick the extras boxes to save money. Prices have certainly gone up since 2016, so I'm sure you can afford a few % in REA fees.
P.S - Not in financial stress so happy to hold if required but want to sell privately or off market !
There are options. A REA can do a off market listing via domain/RE that spam buyers in those search areas or companies like www.areaspecialist.com.au will list it for you to their base on buyers looking for development sites.
As a buyer, I don't care if the seller are useless , i just want the lowest price on the property that I'm interested on.
Not sure about you, but I don't mind spending 10 minutes to taps a few keys and clicks or calls for my big investment / purchase.
I could imagine some useless 'buyer' that are rich and ready with a bag of cash for a quick no fuss deal without wanting to spend any effort on their million dollars property purchase.
Maybe you're too rich with your Tesla stocks to care about that few % money, but then why are you even at ozbargain site scouting for discounts on a few bucks, whilst don't mind paying REA a few % at over $30k or more ? Are you the REA that drives a Tesla?
As a buyer, I don't care if the seller are useless , i just want the lowest price on the property that I'm interested on.
LOL yeah you don't care now but wait until they won't give you price guides (even when legally required in VIC), won't give you the address, never free for inspections or when they do give you a price it is crazy over priced and won't budge.
From the rest of your comments, you haven't dealt with one of these owner sellers yet I see.
Are you the REA that drives a Tesla?
Not a REA at all, just some pleb who has dealt with these owner sellers.
I actually find the opposite is true. Many REA don't give actual prices, only a 'contact agent' or offers over 'xyz'. Have been to 3 for sale by owner listings in the last year, all of which sold. There's currently 799 listings on the realestate.com.au site that are using the for sale by owner option. For me the biggest problem would be to take professional photos and to deal with the timewasters/lowballers
I actually find the opposite is true. Many REA don't give actual prices, only a 'contact agent' or offers over 'xyz'.
If you are in VIC a SOI is required for sale. So when a REA lists a listing, they have a price guide attached. Sadly owner sellers withhold this even if it is a legal requirement to be supplied when asked.
Again, YMMV I'm just providing my feedback from the couple I've dealt with, and honestly give them a miss these days unless the property is something special.
did it ages ago in a hot market. it might be a bit tougher in a cooler market. Agents sometimes have contacts for potential buyers. Use a company like sale by home owner or buy my place. Only Domain takes private listings, real estate doesn't. These other companies will put you on both websites and a few others, and you can buy a sign board. If you're willing to do the open homes, contact potential buyers and do the negotiation and have a fair idea of what your property is worth, you can do it. Also have a look at other similar properties and how long they are taking on average to sell. Bare that in mind when you give up your Saturdays, it might take a few weeks / months.
Last i checked, domain stopped taking private listings too.
For sale by owner listings are still coming up on realestate.com.au
Facebook Marketplace.
And also Gumtree.
And also Ebay
cash in hand only
Get a Conveyancer with Insurance, or a Lawyer— whoever is cheaper cos it is bog standard easy for them to prepare a Contract of Sale.
Borrow a teenager’s fancy iPhone to take lots of photos yourself.
Advertise and negotiate yourself with potential buyers.
They sign the contract of sale, leave deposit in Conveyancer’s Account. Pick up keys from Conveyancer or you drop keys off on day of Settlement. Very straight forward easy.
Hold an open for inspection once a week. Genuine buyers stay open to negotiating with you.
I hear that you can also hire an Auctioneer for a day if lots of demand, but I’m not sure about that.
You can, and should, save a fortune cos all Agent’s costs really add up to many, many tens of thousands now that property prices have gone up- buy your own Mercedes.
For the same property real estate agents once earned $3000 to sell - they now earn at least $30,000. That is ridiculous. Sellers just can’t stop throwing their money away.
real estate be like "yo, here's a house, you want it?"
buyer " yeah, Ok"
real estate agent - "lol, $30,000 for sweet F.A……wait did I say that out loud?"
They probably find a way to dodge paying the tax too.
Why don't you become an agent then?
It's actually not easy. You'd have to be a slimy snake to milk both sides whilst pretending to be their best friends caring for their best interests, all the while giving out advice or telling 'stories' that nett yourself with best gains by screwing both buyers and sellers behind them.
You won't get successful from being an honest bloke.
Either what you describe is how you must behave to be successful ie what people demand. Or you can become and agent and be honest and therefore fill the gap in the market place
Acting like that comes naturally to some people, sadly.
Own story, personal experience. 2017 Beginning put our PPOR on the market. Own pictures (i am good with photography), own listing through domain and others, own wordings. Stupid me trying to save RE agent fees. 3 months, 100 turnouts and few hundred queries. Was asking 725, highest got offer 715 even flaky offers. All immigrants were in the pool of interested parties, guess they didn't trust my skin color to sell something.
Took off from the market, another coat of paint outside and went through the most crook RE agent in the area. Sold after 5 months for 780k.
Go figure. The property spruiker dumb people trust RE agents more than a genuine seller. 12K in commission and costs and I got out as a happy seller on the pick of the market.
Sydney Western Suburb.
Talk to a conveyancer