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Top Tips for dealing with Real Estate Agents

Top tips for dealing with Real Estate Agents

Melbourne real estate agent, Bryce Houston shares his passion for property by giving us his top tips for dealing with real estate agents

Become a local expert

Try to inspect at least twenty properties of the type that meet your criteria in the town or locality you are looking at before making any purchase decision.

Don’t rush things

Make the effort to visit the area a few times. During the week, at weekends, in the day and during evenings. Talk to the locals to get a feel for the area and what it has to offer – and what it doesn’t.

Check recent sales

Look at the property sales (sold results) on realestate.com.au or domain for the last six to twelve months to ascertain the actual market value of sales. Don’t go only by the listed asking sale price – study what has sold and for how much.

Know your buy price limit and preferred type of property

Know how much you can borrow and the type of property you want before talking to agents. Then tell them that you are pre-approved and what you are looking for. This will make you a serious buyer in their eyes and they’ll try hard to find you a suitable property. Call them once a week to see if anything has turned up.

Set up alerts

Set watch alerts on your favourite real state app like realestate.com.au or domain to alert you of any new listings so you can get into action as soon as they come online.

Check the days on market

Ask the agent how many days on the market a property has been on for or simply search realestate.com.au from newest to oldest as this will show you the oldest. Older listed properties are often more negotiable and agents will be keen to sell.

Don’t be reluctant to make an offer

Real estate agents and Vendors love to get offers especially if the property has been on the market for a while. Even if it’s a low offer, it could be the one the vendor accepts.

Keep in front of the agent’s mind

Agents may not chase you, especially in hot markets, and good deals go quickly in any market. Let them know you are a serious buyer and stay in touch. You may be offered a property off-market, which can save the vendor thousands of dollars in advertising and staging costs, save the agent’s time and reduce your purchase price.

About Bryce Houston

Bryce has bought, subdivided, renovated and sold properties from Frankston to Byron Bay. He combined his thirty years of sales experience with his passion for property by becoming a real estate agent in 2016, and now gets to share his passion for property with other sellers and buyers.

For more information about Bryce: https://carrumdowns.harcourts.com.au/Profile/Bryce-Houston

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What makes a potential investment area attractive

What makes a potential investment area attractive?

Some investors will avoid areas because there’s a high proportion of rental properties or it’s a dirty looking industrial town. They might favour suburbs where they would like to live themselves, but this is not relevant. What matters is whether other people want to live there, because this is what makes an investment area attractive.  

Risdon_Vale

Risdon Vale is an outer suburb of Hobart and it’s also where Tasmania’s maximum-security male prison is located. It’s not what most would call an attractive place. The area is dominated by massive walls skirting the jail’s perimeter, topped with coils of razor wire and the night sky is penetrated by floodlit guard towers and the howling of ferocious guard dogs.

Coupled with the constant threat of rampaging escapees running amok through the town, surely here is a place that could be called “unattractive” and deter any potential residents.

Yet, here’s the thing, Risdon Vale has the highest housing rental yield in Hobart and it’s driven by genuine rental demand. The source of housing demand comes from the wives and partners of the inmates, who rent properties in Risdon Vale to be near their incarcerated loved ones for conjugal and family visits.

The irony is that the higher the incidence of burglaries, murders and other serious crime in Tasmania, the greater will be the demand for rental properties in Risdon Vale.

The importance for investors is not that you might find such places unattractive or even dangerous, and that you wouldn’t want to live there – what matters is whether other people want to live there, creating housing demand in the process. 

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Our Accuracy

My published predictions - an unequalled record of accuracy

I publicly forecast Sydney’s and Hobart’s housing market booms, BUT unlike other commentators, my predictions were published in the property media just before the growth kicked in, not years before or after.

In July 2020, I predicted in Smart Property Investment, Australian Property Investor, Real Estate Business and Your Investment Property that Canberra was set to become our best performing capital city.  

Since I made that bold prediction, Canberra’s housing market has recorded the highest house price growth of all Australia’s capital cities!

I was the only expert to forecast (YIP Magazine, March 2020) that property prices would boom in our major capital cities as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. This was at the same time as the economists and other analysts were all forecasting doom and gloom.