Episode 94 | Trust, truth & tough conversations - top agent reveals all | Geoff Grist, Richardson & Wrench, Mosman/Neutral Bay

How to find & deal with an honest real estate agent

Sales agent Geoff Grist, who’s written a book called “Sold Above Market” is a real estate agent on Sydney’s Lower North Shore. Geoff reveals some great insights into how the best agents operate.

Here’s what we covered:

• Why the remuneration of agents goes hand in hand with mistrust.

• Why AVM’s aren’t worth the paper they are printed on.

• What you need to do prior to selling your home to maximize price.

• What makes buyers pay above market prices?

• How to get your offer accepted, the rules of engagement.

• How can you buy below market?

• How do vendors ruin their own sales campaigns?

• Hard discussions vendors needs to have with their agent.

• How can an average agent can ruin a sale.

We hope this episode explains more about psyche of sales agents.

WEBSITE LINKS:
Episode 12 - John Cunningham
Episode 20 - Georgie Bates

GUEST WEBSITES:
FREE copy of “Sold Above Market” click HERE
Geoff Grist - Richardson & Wrench Mosman/Neutral Bay

Work with Veronica? info@gooddeeds.com.au
Work with Chris? hello@wealthful.com.au

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: 

Please note that this has been transcribed by half-human-half-robot, so brace yourself for typos and the odd bit of weirdness…
This episode was recorded on 3 October, 2019.

Veronica: Your listening to the Elephant in the Room Property Podcast where the big things that never get talked about actually get talked about. I'm Veronica Morgan, real estate agent buyer's agent, cohost of Foxtel's location, Location, Location Australia and author of a new book "Auction ready how to buy property even though you're scared shitless".

Chris: And I'm Chris Bates, financial planner, mortgage broker and together we're going to uncover who's really making the decisions when you buy a property.

Veronica: Don't forget that you can access the transcript for this episode on the website as well as download our free Fool or Forecaster Report. Which experts can you trust to get it right, the elephant in the room.com.au

Chris: Please stick around for this week's elephant rider bootcamp and we have a cracking Dumbo, the weight coming out.

Chris: before we get started, everything we talk about on this podcast is general in nature and should never be considered to be personal financial advice. If you're looking to get advice, please seek the help of a licensed financial advisor or buyers agent. They will tailor and document their advice to your personal circumstances. Now let's get cracking.

Veronica: It's been some time since we've interviewed a sales agent. In the early days of this podcast. We dedicated exactly half of our first 20 episodes to getting into the minds of real estate agents who understand their tricks of the trade and how they influence buyers, and of course I recommend that you go back and listen to those episodes if you haven't as yet. Back then in early 2018 it was a buyer's market in most parts of the country and we gained so many insights into the way selling agents were responding to those tough market conditions. They all shared how they somehow managed to get offers from buyers while keeping their stressed sellers calm throughout their often drawn out process. It's a different story now in particular, Sydney and Melbourne seem to be well and truly in recovery mode and agents certainly treat buyers differently when it's a sellers market, but does it require a different skill set to get a good outcome for their owners? Now the tables have turned in EPIs. In this episode, we pick the brains of a sales agent who has written a book or two on this very topic. One of them is called soul. So one's called "Sold above market"and the other one is called "Journey to Sold" and he tells us he's written three others. So we'll maybe find out about that as well. Geoff Grist is a real estate agent on Sydney's lower North shore telling homes from the Harbor bridge, the spit bridge and across to Northbridge. And I've often said that Sydney is a city of bridges. Uh, Geoff says that he loves to sell nice homes for nice people to nice buyers so that everyone has a smile and it must be said that there's some pretty nice properties in his patch. Geoff has written. Alright, so, Geoff is, yeah, if he's very keen about educating buyers and sellers to make the sales process as smooth as possible. And today we're going to get some great insights into how the best real estate agents operate. Thank you Geoff.

Geoff: Hey, good morning.

Chris: Hello Geoff.

Geoff: Hey Chris.

Chris: I do love the tide of your book when I'm trying to sell. But as a buyer, it doesn't fill me with excitement. I mean sold above market. Um, I mean that's not great for the buyer, isn't it? Um, so I mean, I mean, how does it really work? I mean, obviously that's the big name of the game for real estate, but there really isn't the buyer paying what the market I, you know, or how does it actually have, they pay more than the market?

Geoff: The look, the buyers often set the prices on properties because it doesn't matter what the owner wants, it's what the buyer's going to pay. So you've got to find a balance between the two. And, um, as I always say to people when they walk into an open home, are you browsing today or are you actually looking to buy?

Geoff: Because a lot of them are just on the hunt, but they're not actually buyers us. So one of the big jobs a sales agent has to do is to have the 50 people you meet in two weeks, work out which ones? Actually the buyers, you know, because the worst thing a buyer can say to me is, is Oh hi, I'm not in a hurry. Or even worse, I've been looking for one year.

Chris: Yeah.

Geoff: It doesn't make me feel like I want to devote a lot of time to them.

Veronica: You send them into a business like mine. This is what a lot of agents do. They say, Oh, you need a buyer's agent.

Geoff: That's exactly right.

Chris: Let's get to the nub of that right time. Like a year is probably too long. Right.

Chris: This is serious too long. Serial offender. Um, yeah, you've seen, you probably don't need you to juice themselves to be honest.

Chris: Cause you've seen them 14 times and you know, they're never going to take action or if they do, they, you know, they'll probably short flop and change. But yeah. So buying, you're sold above market.

Geoff: So your next qualifying question is always, when was the last time you bid at an auction? Yeah. And if they say, I missed out last weekend. I grabbed him with both arms and say, I love you. I want to help you. All right. Yeah. If they say, I've never been at an auction, it's alarm bells. Yeah.

Chris: But what about time? If I been looking for a month? Yeah. Is that a warning sign to say that I haven't got enough market knowledge is uh, you know, do you want to see someone, you know, because if they haven't been looking for months, sometimes I don't know what they really want. Yeah. You know, find that there is a sweet spot where you think they're been in the market for months. Maybe they bid at an auction. This is all the buying signs.

Chris: Yeah, exactly. So one of the problems is they say, I'm not sure if I'm buying on the Eastern suburbs or the Northern side, you know? So, okay, that's a big decision. So you need to make that first, you know? Oh, and the other one, don't ever say this to me, I'll, I'll see it when I see it. You know, I'll just know. I said, well, it's not going to help me find you a property. You know, .

Veronica: But it is not really your job to find them, one is it?

Geoff: Well if they come in and this one's not right for them. Yeah, the my new job is help them find a property. So if, if I can find them one in our area. And this happens from time to time. So I had a lady came in and looked at a property, she said, Oh look, I'm buying around here but it's just not this one. This is what I want, ABC. I said, I think I've got something like that coming up. I'll give you a call. Uh, she was the only one that saw it. She bought it cause she identified exactly what she wanted. Owner was happy to go with her and deals done.

Veronica: But did she paying above market, I'm pretty sure.

Geoff: Yeah. I haven't sold a bargain. Yeah,

Veronica: I see. So did you, did you get that? Did you get that above market price because of the exclusivity and the scarcity that you're the only one seeing this all work? They don't tell. Tell us how the lines you use.

Geoff: Yeah. Well look, the lines are, you know, people, people say, Oh I'm making this offer and the owners here. And I said, well, I've got to just bridge that gap in between. It's a bit like when you're the only bidder at an auction, right? People say, I'm not bidding against myself. Well, you're actually not. You're actually gonna you're bidding against the owner because he owns it now and you want to own it. Something's got to give. You know, so you're not bidding against yourself, I can assure you. But if it is that opportunity where there's just you, then you've got a great opportunity, to try and bridge that gap at a, at a reasonable pace. But as soon as a new person walks into the equation, you've lost your opportunity.

Veronica: Mm. It does happen, doesn't it?

Geoff: Oh, that happens a lot. Yeah. Where something happens on a Saturday, it passes in at an auction.

Geoff: There isn't the interest and a new person appears on Monday. That has been, I still wait. Have you been, you know, I've been brought on,

Chris: I was keen on Smith street. I missed out of the auction. Yeah. I'm this one and now I'm really upset because I've got the pain of that. And then I also, my other options sold last weekend as well. And so then I've got nothing to, and.

Chris: So you're my new best friend. Yeah, yeah. Cause you're, you're wounded and you want to buy a property and this one takes half your boxes. And I say if it takes more of a tick, seven out of 10 boxes, it's not 30% wrong. Yup.

Geoff: I mean it gets how big that eight boxes though, isn't it? If that's the number one,

Veronica: somebody asked me last night, so how many boxes should be ticked and I'm all, well, depends how many boxes you've got in your page. I mean, if you've got 110 boxes, I would suggest maybe 10% of them need to be ticked, but you've only got eight, maybe 100% of the need to be ticked.

Geoff: It would well be. But you know, what I know is I've never sold the perfect place and that's okay. Um, as someone said to me, I hate the pink bathroom. I say, okay, at what price is the big bathroom acceptable? You know, like, let's put a number on it.

Chris: It's interesting you say that cause I'm looking at the moment. It's definitely an interesting journey.

Veronica: Havent you bought Well yet God, I know.

Chris: Well I'll be in this market not out of it. Ah, but it's funny when we go into those comes and there's never a perfect place as you say, but I always like to, you know, get to know the agent a little bit and say hello and then ask and then I'll kind of highlight the one of the, and it's quite amusing, some of their lines. Um, you know, it's a, yeah. For example, let's say.

Veronica: You are an annoying buyer you know, like, you know, the agent knows the floors is quite funny.

Chris: Exactly. But it's, it's uh, well, what do you say though, when it's got like a, I don't know, really bad light, how would you, how would you sell that property?

Geoff: Still really bad lighting or ms. Dot. It's dark is dark. Look, sometimes if you've got, if you got the a ability, you can go and put some S, some standard lamps in and uplights you know, from Ikea for 12 bucks. Yep. They work beautifully. Let's call it styling. Yeah. That's called styling, but you know, you, you know in advance, so you're going add some light to it. But if it's too dark, it's too dark. I mean, I can't change. There's some things I can't change much as I'd love to. You know, someone says this one hasn't got a car park. No it didn't when you saw it advertised and it still doesn't when you got here, but it doesn't have a car park and I can't change that.

Geoff: So if that's the, you know, the, the number one thing that you want, um, let's go and see if there's a spare one in the building that somebody is not using.

Chris: You know, what about.

Geoff: noisy roads though. Well, the funny thing about noisy ride scripts is that there's always somebody living there anyway. You know, like the, the houses and apartments on noisy roads aren't empty. You know, someone either renting them or owning them or me. And so, but there is a price concession that you, you know, someone will say, look, you know, I can buy the same thing on a quiet street. Well that's your option, but if you can buy this one at a better deal, yes. Then let's talk about that.

Chris: Yeah. I've had our electric cars for that one. That was, that was pretty good from the agent. I said, Oh, it's a bit of a busy street. Good. He said, Oh well you know, electric cars are coming.

Speaker 4: parked cars is silent.

Veronica: You the screams of all the prople that get hit buy them I mean, I just think it's quite funny. I mean just what about steep, steep driveway is every, every hat is to try whatever's was say dry wise.

Chris: Wow man. Not that many. It wasn't compared to where you're looking at by, I mean it's all, it's quite funny cause she's like, ah, yeah, but um, you know, I'm a female. I can get down it and I say she's sick. So she wearing like ridiculous 12 inch heels. [inaudible] I had no problems getting down here and I'm a female. It's, I was like, Oh, come on now.

Geoff: You just, and I mean I sometimes I find that someone who wants to raise an objection to something, they actually really liked the place. I just don't want to tell me that they're actually saying, you know, I don't like that or I don't like that.

Chris: And I say, okay, but at what price is those things? Okay. You know, because once I move past that or they're just highlighting it for the fact of it. I mean, rarely does someone walk in and say, this is perfect. I've got a stack of money, I'm ready to go right there and you're going to come in and complain about something. Oh, don't like that, download that. Okay, but is this still the best thing you've seen all day? Oh, it is. Okay. Well, at what price would you want to call it home?

Veronica: Let's wind back a little bit. We talked about at auction passing year and you've got one buyer, they're not seeing the opportunity. Then Monday rocks around. You've got a new buyer comes in, maybe they missed

Geoff: out on something else, but clearly it's this asking price that leuers that extra bar. Right? So if it's going to have a ridiculously high asking price, you're going to have crickets for ages. Yeah.

Geoff: And it happens. There's still people that um, the love of their house more than anyone else doesn't know. You know, they bought, they still own it, you know. Um, but once it's been on the market and they get some feedback and that's where buyers need to be able to step up and say, look, it's not right for me. But if it was, I'd probably be interested at $850, you know, give us some feedback. Gives us selling agents and feedback so that he had.

Chris: I've noticed the back a lot race and then talk, you know the mean there's some properties that have been sitting on the market for five, six months. Everything else is selling. Yeah. And they're priced $400,000 more of what the market is and you know, one was two and then they dropped it to one seven. You know, I had sat it $2m for months.

Chris: I mean it's very dangerous for a seller to do that. Doesn't it? Cause it static. It becomes style. The property. Do you think it starts to get a bit of a bad smell because people are like why hasn't it sold?

Geoff: Yeah, it's, it does happen. And I recently went for a listing. Um, I said, look, I think your home will find interest cause it's not my, I'm not the price police, right. It's, I'm going to say, look, I think at home like this is going to find interest from buyers at say $4.5M. Right beyond the said almond, I want $5.6. And I said, well why is that? How do you come up with that number? Well that's what we need. We're for where we want to move to. Yeah. Okay, well that's a different story to what, what a buyer will pay for your house today. Anyway, she ended up listing with somebody else at $5.4 and two months later she sold $4.6. So she kind of, there's no second prize. You know, it's like you either get paid or you don't. Um, and but she did contact me and say, you were right. You were the closest in the original prize. And I said, I said, I'm so happy for you because you're able to go and do what you want to do. Now. Well they can't because they wanted five.

Veronica: Yeah, yeah. They're gonna do something different. Yeah. Actually that's, you know, there is a thing though where ultimately sells for less than it could have.

Geoff: Okay, cool. And if it's on the market for so long that people think that there's something wrong with it, you know, then it might, and then again, you'll get somebody that just comes along out of the blue and say, I'm comfortable with the price guide. And you go, great, well where do we go from here? You know, and make an offer and look good. Let's get started.

Chris: I think in a seller's market, in a buyer's market, yeah. The buyer just never comes along cause they always can find something. Right? Yeah. Yeah. In a sellers market, which I feel like we're shifting to now, I basically have Chris, we've shifted. Yeah. And um, yeah, people are going to those because they're like, they just don't want to go through the process of missing out. And then they start looking, they start compromising and they start getting desperate.

Chris: Yeah. And then they start meeting the market on poor properties. And I, yeah, I feel like that they're not very forgiving in the bad times, but in the good times you can still sell them. Yeah. I mean, what's your thought? You said there that the things have shifted. I mean, I think that when things shift, generally they're going to shift into more premium suburbs first because that's generally where most buyers are going to get the confidence to go. And that's where they would that where they really want. Yeah. Well you can tell when there's a turn because properties that aren't perfect or have something major wrong with them, well let's put them the one on the busy road. Yep. Yep. That's gonna that's not gonna sell as quickly anymore. So that that becomes the benchmark for when property is on busy road starts selling again. Yup. Everything's gone up because people have jumped in. Yeah. People are saying, well look, I don't want to be on the busy road, but it's the only thing in my price range. Yeah, yeah. Obviously. Yeah, it's back. Yeah. And it's scarcity as well. I mean on the lower North shore at the moment, we just don't have enough properties. Simple as that.

Veronica: Come on. Come on. Refrain. Okay. So choice of agents. So your one of your books there is all about really choosing an agent, right? So obviously you are an agent, you've written the books, here's right, this is what I do and this is what you should look for an agent. Obviously I do it all. So therefore on the guy, but, and I've noticed it, I mean I've seen it wasn't a sales agent as well, so I've certainly noticed when the market was slower, the difference or the choice of agent made such a difference, um, to the vendor and also us, uh, and whether or not it sold and what it sold for. Want to give us some insights as to what you think makes the difference. How does, how does a choice of agent make a difference?

Geoff: Sure. Um, there's, there's a whole row, there's a whole whole list. But it is, I mean, it starts basically with communication. So if your agent that you're working with isn't giving you the feedback that you need to hear, if they're sugarcoating it and you know, if no one turned up on Saturday, but they're saying to did, um, just to make you feel better, um, that's the wrong agent. Something has to change. If it's not going well and they need to have, you know, to be able to put that to you in such a way that they don't give you a problem, they offer you a different solutions. So, um, the, the right agent's always going to keep you informed so that you feel like you, when you're making a decision that you're comfortable with it, that you're not forced into a corner, that you're making a decision that that agent is, is encouraging you to go down this path because had done it before.

Chris: Um, so a lot of the younger agents are not younger, but the new entrance into the industry really struggle to get good at that communication. To actually have that confidence as an advisor to really guide our clients through the journey. Yeah, look, that could be it. They may not be big on having a long discussion with someone. I mean if I've got a seller that's not following my guidelines, then this time to sit down with them and have a big jet, you know, and let's look at some of the properties that listed when we did that have sold and why we're still on the market. So you know, there's new properties that have come on which are our new competition, which weren't there when we priced it. They're going to give us a good indication of where we should be to compete with those. So you've got to, you know, the solds and the newly listed again to help any agent to get the seller in the right head space.

Veronica: It is having those hard discussions, isn't it? Without, without scaring them.

Geoff: Yeah. You don't want to beat them over the head. You just want to put it into perspective in that this person came on when we did and they've sold and their house has flaws as well, but they've, they've been more open to a broader price ranch. Yeah.

Chris: The ones that was listed a property on the market. How much are they actually sunk into listing it, like in the marketing, you know, because they, if they're living in it and they have a style startup, then yeah, that's, let's just assume that's the case. Okay. What were they roughly like sunk into? Like the domain? Yeah, and it's, it's a, it's really snuck up. I was looking at, um, I was looking at some past campaigns. I think back in 2005 we were charging $220 for the internet, you know, and now you're looking at real estate for a house in our area at the, at the premium level, which is where everyone's going to put them anyway.

Geoff: You're looking about $1950 and domain about $2050. So you're up for about $4,000 to list on the internet. Um, but you can't list without photos. So you're looking at, you know, $350 to $400 for photos, a floor plan, $1$50 to 200, uh, some copy. Um, I'd do like a copywriter cause you know, that's what they do. I'm already facing in there. But there, there's always one side of the house, uh, faces North, I'll probably, well 90 for copywriting. Say, you know, you're looking at probably approaching five or six grand to get it on the market.

Chris: Um, does agents generally charge need like engage in a phase or anything that they're getting a little bit like a retainer?

Geoff: No, we're the only profession that works for nothing unless we get a a result that you're absolutely delighted with and you're prepared to sign on the bottom line and then we wait six to 10 weeks after that to get paid.

Veronica: Yeah. It's, it's, it's pretty rotten actually. Uh, you know, I've long held that the remuneration of agents goes hand in hand with distrust of agents, you know what I mean? Because not everyone does have that big picture view where they go, you know what I mean? He had a long run or I'm doing the right job and ultimately I'm going to get paid. Yeah. There's always going to be that pressure too, to pressure someone to sell. Because at the end of the day, like you say, it's the vendors prerogative to sell or not to sell. This sunk cost is maybe they're six, seven grand and then the agents under pressure and the longer you have it on the market, of course the more time you've invested, you probably put something of your own marketing dollars into it.

Geoff: But that's the importance of vendor paid advertising. If the vendor pays the advertising upfront, they committed, they're in, there's got skin in the game. If the paying for it, then he's desperate to sell the property because if he's got six or $7,000 in there and he's got three or four properties on the market, he's 20,000 behind. And he's worried about that rather than getting the best price for your property.

Chris: I think, I mean, regardless, I think even if the vendor does pay the five grand, um, yeah, never. And that they still haven't got any paid a single dollar right in their spend, you know, hours organizing, all that. Getting the photography, doing a couple of opens, you know, four weeks into a campaign. Like you could be talking 30 hours of time easy. Oh yeah. You know, times $300 bucks an hour, let's say to be a profitable business, you know, $10 grand of costs invested plus the opportunity cost of what they could be making if they sold something else. It's, it's, you know, the whole system in terms of actually paying that commission on sale. Yeah. At some point the vendor is not getting what they want or the market's not there. Yeah. At some point the agent has to then if the vendor is the best thing for the vendors to wait six to 12 months.

Chris: Yeah. Then how does the agent, you've got to switch off their own personal benefit here and go, yeah, no. Well, and that's if you made it like a retainer, like recruitment for example, you know, you pay $10 grand and if we sell it, we still get $10 grand. But if we sell it, you get, you know, $10 grand each shot, we'll get $10 grand plus another 10 grand or something like that would at least create a bit more trust because you know that the person selling it could, is still going to walk away with a profitable outcome.

Geoff: Sure. And then you've got this great, great new system and then you've got a bunch of agents with our listing who say, you know what? I'll do it for two grand. I don't need the, I don't need the 10 you know? So you always, your worst enemy is another agent who's more desperate than you are, you know? So desperation leads to desperation.

Chris: the low commissions though a little bit though, because it keeps the, yeah, it does reduce commissions by the the brick X. Now the brick X is the purple bricks of the world and yeah,

Veronica: who packed up and gone home. Yeah. I don't think that was because they offered a fee fee fee for service model or an upfront fee. I think it was because are absolutely 100% miss read. I blame it on the market conditions. It's like, no, you misread how Australians buy. and sell.

Geoff: and they miss read it in America too. So they picked up from there. So yeah, no, that's another argument. Money without any actual marketers. I think agents, agents get of a fee that they deserve. You know, and I, I cited in my book, look, if the agent's asking for a fee, been paying that fee because that's what they believe they're worth and that's the value they're bringing to the table. If somebody's going to be cheaper than that,

Veronica: I'm going to have to put a little auntie, can I write an extra chapter for you? No, you can't ask to negotiate the fee. And these are the sorts of things you get out.

Geoff: Yeah, well I put it to someone the other day. Don't ask me to negotiate. We were going through the marketing, which people like to do and say, well, do I, do I have to have this? And I said, and I knew, um, person owned a restaurant. And I said, well, unfortunately this is a recipe and if you want to start taking stuff out of it, it's not going to taste so good. You know? And immediately he said, sorry. Yeah. Just put everything back in. Yup.

Veronica: Basically. And not actually on that. Um, because you know, we're talking about the cost of internet advertising versus what it used to be. And so 2006, the last time I sold a property, so, you know, that was your cheap back then, but we were still investing in print advertising a lot more than I think people do these days. So that, that's changed hasn't it?

Geoff: Yeah. I mean, um, the Mosman daily used to be a tome, you know, and particularly, um, you know, double page spreads. Um, the cost of it is just gone through the roof to the point where, uh, I think currently, you know, we're probably the property sections down about eight pages and two of them are local properties and the others are out of towners who, like the Hunter Valley. We were trying to get Mosman people to buy up there. Um, so the readership and the distribution of it's all problematic at the moment. So other companies like Campaign Track who supply the signboards and the, and the brochures and things like that. Nine now offer a digital products. So they're doing a pro aim, which, which advertises your property on Google and Facebook. And so they'll package all that up for you. So that's a $890 product and it's taken the place of probably a half page ad at some point, you know, so there's a alternatives to print these days and um, you know, and video of course is a new way of getting a, you know, complete walkthrough and that sort of thing. So it's book, Facebook, advertising, Facebook. So yeah, there's lots of different ways of doing it and um, you know, DL's and, and print just isn't on top of those things.

Veronica: You still get a letter box full of deals from agents going bragging about their latest Sol price or the one I particularly love, wiggly little led are saying, you know, it's Dear owner occupant and it's got all these, these latest list. Yeah. This latest sales and then not even by that agent. They just love it.

Chris: I just had a client who he just bought and sold in Mosman. Nice. Yeah. It was a good clot? Nope. No, it was for a different agent. It was through the same agent and so at the same time I was selling a house and they bought a house through the same agent and negotiating on the same day for a buy and a sell with the same agent. Do you have, you had, has so many conflicts guy on rights day, just say same date. Oh wow. This is a, is it the, the sale wouldn't happen if he couldn't buy that property, right? Yeah. Seller of the property, the more expensive property and the upgrading to um, wouldn't, I don't know if he knew that the, the buyer buying it would been on a, on another property. How do you manage that from an agent point of view? Because to be honest, it wouldn't be the first time that would happen because a lot of the time people are upgrading in the same suburb.

Chris: Yeah. And they're buying and selling at the same time. How did you deal with, how would you deal with something like that?

Geoff: Ah, that's a tricky one, Chris. I mean, there's so many conflicts as you say that, um, I, I would just be full disclosure because I wouldn't want it to come back later, you know? And, and if you're not open and transparent, people wonder what else he hiding from them. That's the biggest issue. And that, I mean, in a simple terms, every time I sell Australia property, I provide a strata report because I find if I give them the information, and even if it's not all good news, they still trust me, right? Because I'm giving them the inflammation. If they have to go and pay to find out about it, then they say, what else has he told me? You know? So there's a level of trust there. But I, I, I would be looking at different ways. I mean, look, I'm about to put my own house on the market, but I'm not going to sell it. I've hired an agent in the office to do it right. Because there's a conflict of interest there. I mean, I don't want someone walking through and say I don't like this and don't like that cause that's my house.

Veronica: Well your elephant would be in the way. I, you know, I've, I sold a couple of properties in the last couple of years and eh, my elephant was his, one of has actually bumped into one of the agents from the officer that sold one of the properties. And they were laughing at me saying, Oh, you behaved just like a typical seller and all my experience, you know, all my experience, all my knowledge and I still found the elephants are romping I had to be guided so that I made good decisions. Yeah. So it's good that you're doing that.

Geoff: Just for the record of when, uh, when the agent asked me what marketing we were doing and I said yes, all of it.

Geoff: Oh, of course. It being a discount, so it's fine.

Chris: So let's say you're up high, you hear to get buyers to pay more than market, right? That's the title of your book. Is it a good fit? You know, uh, sell above market, sold above market. But how do I, as a buyer pay market or pay below market? Like where, where do we, where do we, where can we actually, what tactics can we use to at least make us get a fair price?

Geoff: Okay. For the reason buyers don't buy properties is they don't make offers symbol as that. I have so many people that say to me, have you had any offers? And I'll say, yes, I'm talking to someone right now. Well, what's their offer? And I said, well, what would you pay? Because what that negotiation I'm having with that person's a private conversation. And it's, they've made an offer without reference to anybody else, but they made an offer that they're comfortable at. So then you come along and say, well, what's their offer? Because I might pay $10 more.

Veronica: So social proof, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Feel better about it. Yeah.

Geoff: So the difficulty is if you don't make an offer, you're not going to find anything out at all and you're not going to get a chance to buy the property. So the worst thing that can happen is the saying is the easiest property to sell is the one you've just sold because people put up their hand and go, Oh, I would have paid that well, where were you? Yeah, I did ask you if you'd make an offer and you said no. Um, so.

Geoff: as it is quite infuriating as an agent, isn't it? When that happens, a lot of that is there. It's disappointing because you think, well, I'm sorry you missed out on it, but it's your own fault.

Veronica: Well, yeah, I mean it's on the markets for sale. It's up to you to make an offer. But the asking price has a lot to do with that right.

Geoff: The asking price is a guide and you know, the, the new law is we can put either a fixed price, no price or a 10% guide. So, um, typically if it's an auction, a lot of people decide to put no price on it, which is a little bit annoying because it just forces someone to ring up and say, well, what's the guide? And there's still going to be a guide price. So you know, why don't you just tell them up front?

Chris: But does an agent really know what it's worth though. I find it, it's quite, if you've got furniture, we can always blame the agent who's, you know, it's, you put on price guide of $1.2. Well, I don't really know until I've got, you know, out in the market, I've dressed it up, I've got run it open home and 10- 15 people came through it and they all loved it and I, they all want to, they all think is worth $1.3-$1.4.

Chris: Like it's hard to know sometimes. Do you think that? Yeah. Really with a price guide, you're at the mercy, you know, it's just very hard. I feel like sometimes at some properties that once it's out there, it actually is a lot harder than people expect. Exactly.

Geoff: And sometimes there aren't comparables to things. You know, something that's unique and different and it doesn't match something else. I mean, I've just listed a, a unit in a building where there's two other good sales this year, so everybody's in agreement. We know what it'll sell for. We've got a guide, a practical guide that's going to work. But if you've got a property that's got a view for instance, and somebody puts a different value on that, you know, it's the same as someone came to me the other day and said, well, what's the car space worth? You know? And I said, well, it's a very good question because a, is it a, is it an open car space or is it an undercover?

Veronica: Where is it?

Geoff: Is it a, you know, Hmm, what location are we in? Are the, is it plenty of street parking or not? Is it actually a garage? Has it got a door on it? Is it a remote control doing.

New Speaker: Is t a 2.5Mf wide garage or a three meter wide garage?

New Speaker: Yeah. So, you know, if we just take garaging and parking, what's it worth? You know, and he used to say, look, go parking somewhere between 30 and 50,000 in area, the old days. And, and then you can go online. And if you Google most expensive car space in Sydney, you'll find some that have sold for four or $500,000. Yeah, I'm including one in neutral Bay, which was open car space.

New Speaker: There's one in Kirribilli too. Wasn't there a few years back.

Geoff: that said view past space was a great investment,

Chris: but technically it probably is, but you're still buying land and so limited market.

Geoff: So it all comes back to this. There's no retail price on secondhand property, you know, so it is, it is worth what the next person will pay for it.

Geoff: Howerver you know, as an agent, you surely have a better idea than Joe blow. You would hope so, wouldn't we?

Geoff: Yeah. Although apparently Joe blow can now look online and find an estimate from a bank or a website which they hold onto dearly and say, this is, this is the estimate online. I'll say, well, unfortunately the computer has never been to the property, so it doesn't know.

Veronica: I actually did a little, uh, do a little exercise just before Christmas last year. So falling market and um, looked at 10 AVMs for property that was on the market and if all 10 of them were higher than the ultimate sale price. So, you know, in a falling market you want them to hold onto those AVMs in a rising market.

Geoff: Right. Yeah. But I looked at a property the other day online to say, what was the estimate on this? Because of that. I've got to see what the buyers are going to say. The guide I'm offered online was a highly high confidence Oh yeah. $4-$9million. Yeah. I love it.

Veronica: I wonder that's a little bit, wide isn't it? I'm 100% confident it will sell for something. Yeah, exactly. So, you know, but uh,

Chris: you've got to have another book coming out. I believe that, correct me if I'm wrong. Um, but I mean there's one coming out about renovation that, you know, cause I think you do a lot of, um, you know, advising well, helping people, I guess dressed up kinda older brick buildings and turn them to, you know, make some money on them. Um, I mean, a lot of listeners probably can't afford a house in Mosman, right?

Chris: Like it's we are talking in median price of $3m, $4m, $5. Yeah, four. Right. So, you know, they'd love to live there. You know, that's probably one of the most desirable places in Sydney, but our apartments are definitely something that they're thinking about. Right. So, you know, can you tell us a bit more how like those premium apartments, who is looking at, um, you know, from a buying point of view and how people can, you know, make good decisions there?

Geoff: Well, again, um, you know, you talked about buyers getting a good deal. Um, they're going to typically buy something that other people can't see the vision with, right? So if you're walking into a place and it's terrible, if it's a deceased to stay at, it hasn't been, nothing's been done for 40 years. It is terrible. And you go, Oh, this is awful.

Geoff: Okay. But it's what we've got, right? So we're not dressing it up when I was saying it's, you know, it's got bells and whistles. So the vision then is, is can you see what you can do with it or, um, and what that will cost and what are the numbers so that you can make an offer and expect to make some money on it. Or is it all or you just have to walk away.

Chris: Cause some people will only buy something that's absolutely finished, you know, so they are the other way around. Right. Some people will only buy things that aren't renovated.

Geoff: Exactly. Yeah. And, and often, um, when you're selling an un-renovated place, you'll get a lot of bottom fishes, you know, bottom because they'll come and say, well, you know, to me it's worth this, you know, and, and it, it's, it's their experience and what they think is going to cost and their brother, who's the builder and you know, how are they going to get over the line? Um, what's probably really important though is the, the condition of the in the building. Because if the building's not in good condition, doesn't matter. You can turn your, you know, pig's ear into a silk purse. But if the building itself still in poor condition, then it's not going to attract the right buyers.

Veronica: Drag it's increasing value down. So what I often observe is that in hot market, unrenovated property, tends to sell for not too well, there's, it's too small a differential between the renovate and the unrenovated and in a slow market, that's where the real opportunities come because buyers, God, I'd have to go through all the hassle of renovating because I can wait around by, you know, renovated, one a discount. Do you find that that's, that's plays out in your area?

Geoff: Yeah, it does. And, and people, people are time poor so they, they just want to pay a little bit more to get what's done, you know, and move straight in and get on with their life, you know. So I'm also now area, the people are tend to buying sort of, um, a bolt hole, you know, um, I've sold a bigger house. I just want to buy a smaller apartment and then I'll get a, a place up in the Hunter Valley or something. You know?

Chris: That's interesting cause I think that's, I w there is without doubt. I mean it's not happening. I don't think right now it's not the heat of it. But in 2017 a hundred percent it was, I mean the house prices for young families with basically off the scale. Right. And a lot of young first time buyers thought, you know, I've given up, I'm not buying a house.

Speaker 4: I cant afford one, I don't want to move to the central coast. I don't want to move to Wollongong. I'm going to go for an a pop and die. And they were doing that maybe 17 I 1819 the cool down they didn't want to buy, now they're back out there buying houses. But maybe in six months time there'll be back to kind of buying apartments again. Yeah. What, who, who are some of the demand for those kind of nicer bigger apartments. What sort of buyers are you seeing out there and can you talk about all the different Bibles because I think that shows how yeah, these investments are. Yeah.

Geoff: We'll look Mosman is full of big houses with older demographic and they've, they want to stay in an area they know. So that's their biggest challenge is to be able to move from where they're comfortable now.

Geoff: But don't use all the rooms to an apartment where there's still got all the, the lifestyle things I like about living in the area, but without the maintenance. So the, the problem we have is that we just don't have enough new stock. So that's why if we go down the path of taking the old stock and renovating it and making it nicer for them, then they're the buyers that are going to move across to that.

Chris: Do they worry about stairs though.

Geoff: There's always that. Yeah. So, so, you know, I've got people who tell me, you know, I can't have one stare, you know, um, if the building hasn't got a lift, I can't buy in to it. That's fine. So, you know, you just expect that your strata fees and things are going to be higher because you've got, um, more maintenance. But I'm absolutely older people do prefer level.

Geoff: I mean, if you could have a, a level apartment walk to the shops with the Balmoral view, you can ask whatever price you're like. Yep. Because there'd be so many buyers after it. Yeah. Yeah.

Veronica: Scarcity. Absolutely.

Chris: Yes. If you are buying those apartments that, uh, you really should avoid, even if it's a great building, a great street, but a view, but it's on the top floor and there's any stairs up to it. Yeah. Yeah. Do you think you're ruling out too much? of a buyer pool or buying those assets even though they do suit kind of young couples and singles and all seasonal kids. As I said earlier, I've never saw the perfect place. So when you go and see a property and it's a three story walk up, I count the steps, you know, so that when I get up there and I sit down with the owner and she says, Oh, you know, it's lovely at the top here. I say, yeah, it's 67 steps. Oh, did you count them? I said, well, all the buyers will too, you know, and um, you'll often find that in opening your property. I've watched her do that.

Geoff: The vendor was probably hoping you didn't notice.I'ts just so it's going to come up. Then there's the MPN. He can make all the jokes about, you don't need a gym membership if, yeah. If you live this one right.

Chris: Glutes. Yeah, exactly. that's back to this style of this conversation is the seat driveway.

Veronica: How tight your buns are going to be walking off you. Yeah. Yeah.

Geoff: But if you get it got just had both your knees done, then you're probably not the buyer.

Veronica: No, no, no, no. You'd be trapped in, it's funny, my grandmother, she lived in a cheese yeah. Deceased 10 years ago, I think roughly. Um, she was living in the w first floor apartment, but she had to go at one flight of stairs and she did, she went into nursing home at the age of 92 and, and she had one, the lovely neighbors used to, she never, she was quite reclusive. She was very, very introverted. My grandmother, believe it or not, um, and she's had this little set up with a pulley, so one of her neighbors had come and put in a pulley at the edge of her balcony and she said, come and hook up a garbage bag and pulley, you know, let it down and then neighbour would unhook it how sweet get groceries delivered was all good.

Veronica: Everything gets delivered now. Right? You don't need to leave. That's right. That's when you go to the doctors. Say you got to have someone come carer, son, daughter come down the stairs.

Chris: What I'm learning about the older demographic is that it's all based around doctor's appointments. Yes. Yeah, yeah. It fit in. You fit in your life around your doctor's appointments.

Chris: Well, I mean there's lots of people dial doctor now anyway, there'll be coming to you as well. I'm sure there'll be no new doctors in the future, so you can just stay there full time.

Chris: So the elephant in the room is 100% for you.

Veronica: The reason that Chris and I do this podcast is because we passionately believe that property buyers can do it better. We really want to help all of you understand all the risks, but also the ways in which you can avoid your elephant making the decisions.

Chris: But what we would love for you to do is just to share this episode and share other episodes with people around you that are going through the property process.

Veronica: Give us a review on iTunes. Five-star please would be very appreciated because this is about making sure that we all benefit from the wonderful information that our guests have been sharing with us.

Chris: have you seen many buildings though that are installing lifts because they don't make sense. Yeah. They don't make sense in, you know, not high priced unit markets for example. So you're not going to get these lifts installed in the middle and outer rings because the cost, the benefits just not going to do. But in a is kind of more established areas, you know, Bellevue Hill, Mosman, et cetera. Balmain, um, it makes sense a lot of sometimes these buildings to potentially consider that putting a lifting. Have you seen that? So,

Geoff: um, I've seen it in homes, but not necessarily a building. So you've got really easy modular glass lifts now that you can literally bolt onto the outside of a building. Um, and so, you know, three story homes are going for things like that. There is another smaller version for inside, but what we are seeing is a PR, uh, is on the rise, a car stackers, you know, and because people have got a single car space and they've worked out if they dig a hole like and put a second car down there. So, um, rather than elevators in the building as being something that was never designed that way, when there's a car space, they've decided, okay, I can have twos.

Veronica: Do you see that quite a lot? Are you

Geoff: Yeag and new builds coming with um, uh, there's a German system where you actually drive into a room and you get out of the car and get out of it and you punch in your address, your unit number and it takes your car away. Right. So, um, there's an apartment block coming up inNneutral Bay where you drive in and stay in the car and takes your car up to your apartment level.

Chris: Yup, yup.

Veronica: Is if there's a building in Birch Grove, and I may have my numbers wrong here, um, where there's a stacker and that type of Ryan doesn't take you up to your level, but I think he can call your car from you, your apartment, you go down and walk into it and look, this is all anecdotal, but apparently they have to allocate something like $20 grand per quarter for the maintenance of said car stacker because a couple of rather critical failures is at finally critical times and high net worth individuals own these places have bugger of that. I don't want my cars stuck in a, in a mechanical system somewhere. So that does add extraordinary ongoing causes. So you're talking about the value of a car space.

Geoff: Yeah, exactly. And I do know of of car stackers that have been broken for a week. so you are stuck without car fo ra week.

Chris: If the car's going up to your level, I mean that's when you got like the glass windows right? And you're trying to show it off and I guess so then you just titled toss back. It's awful. But I mean, that's when you find a nice piece of art. No, I don't have a, you know, an old bashed up sort of old Mazda 626 or something in your garage Boston was a funny area. I went to the premium market. We haven't had many, uh, agents probably at the ultra fine D. I mean, do you sell mainly five to 10 or range or, yeah, I mean I'm, I'm the family guy. Yeah.

Veronica: So you are not the Like $15, 20, 25 million guy sort of thing.

Geoff: No, we've got Dave in the office, often lists those because he's, um, he's the people he's grown up with. Uh, that's where they're ended up now. Right. And the people I've sort of met originally when I started have sort of gone from units to semis two houses to, to wanting to upgrade to bigger houses. So, um, it's, uh, yeah, we just had a, a size 11, nine and a half million, um, which was through terrific buyer's agent. And so it never went on the market. Um, and that was just through a conversation, you know, so, um, a lot of property changes hands in our area without, without coming on the market. I would say 20 to 30%.

Chris: What a higher ratio. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of people, um, who are not property people who don't really get property or understand property or I think it's all going, how's it possibly worth $9 million? How are they going to afford the mortgage on it? No. Can you get some people, you know, there's not really an understanding of how much wealth there is out there and you will probably see that because you'll get these buyers that have got a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah. How are people actually affording this? Where, where is this wealth coming from? Have you got it? You know? Yeah. Cause most people out there just don't understand that it's just there's so much.

Geoff: and there is so much and it's not just in our area. I mean, the Hills district is full of money, you know, like, so every person that walks in you, you can't, someone walks into an open home in shorts and thongs. You can't judge them because you just don't know. Um, so you have to assume that everybody can afford the property and everyone can pay over market. But, um, um, and you know, like you only have to drive through the sh I was, I was driving to work this morning and there's a Bentley convertible in front of me at the lights and in front of that Audi and across the right a Ferrari and behind that a Tesla. And that's just the demographic that we live in. And um, you know, there's so much money, it doesn't cause someone to buy a $12 million house. That's not because they've got $12 million. It's because they've got $45 million, you know, they're only spending $12 on a house.

Veronica: So it's a different way of looking at it, a different perspective. And they've made money in other, other ways, obviously, and I guess they haven't saved up. They their 10% deposit or a $12 million. I haven't taken out the loan, the mortgage for the rest. What are they dying? And that's probably a lot of the buyers at that higher end are probably a bit older as well. Do you find that, you know,

Geoff: a lot of them are company directors and you know, I was talking to a gentleman the other day who said, you know, he put money into a business 12 years ago and it's just about to go to an IPO and he'll be worth $300 million. So he'll buy a house that suits his needs, you know, and it might be even come into the equation.

Veronica: There'll be one of those rare people who can get everything He wants, he wont need to compromise anything he wants. He can have everything a bit careful cause RPI sometimes don't go to plan by the way.

Chris: So yeah, it's bit careful. Yeah, we worked kind of, it was meant to go to IPO last week and that kind of got canned. Um, you know, then sometimes I do go to YPO on the share price crashes. You ain't got enough. It's, um, yeah, drama draw McGraw's of the world's up. There's other ones as well, but uh, you know, the share price does go down. That was launched.

Veronica: Allthough all the, uh, original holders or the staff and John whenever my quite a lot of money, it's the people who bought them and enjoyed the Zell them. They're the ones that lost are usually out of beak shareholding in the company.

Geoff: What you got left? Yeah. Because you, yeah. If you're selling all your shares as your IPO, it's like rice on to new investors. The biggest share holders are getting out.

Chris: I'm not staying on the ship, but I mean, you know, is there a lot of kind of in that demographic though, like how are they, do you see people that have everything they've got though reinvesting back in property? Because I think this is one of the misconceptions that yeah, sometimes everything, almost everything that people have got, they make him $5 million on a property. They go on, Oh, another property at 8 million. Yeah. They put that 5 million straight in.

Geoff: Funny thing is when someone comes and says my budget's 8 million and I can't find anything, um, I feel for them then it, and if their budget's 2 million and they can't find what they want, it's the same thing. So it doesn't matter how much money you've got, you can't find the house that you want. You want the cost 100 million. Because we've never sold the perfect house, however I do. Yeah. Um, but if someone says to I I've got 8 million to spend, they don't go and buy a $4 million house and put the 4 million in the bank. You know, they really want to spend the $8 million and consequently they might end up spending $9 million cause they've paid above market.

Chris: But um, that is so much. Why do you think we've got this obsession so deep ingrained that you know, you know, cause if common sense kicks in, why do you pay $1 million for a house in Mosman when you could buy a house? 20 mins away same size three and tick exactly the same almost. Oh no, she's not exactly you know. Yeah. Technically

Chris: if it was on a street, it's a nice street and it's tree line and you're surrounded by nice houses and you know, and it maybe it has got the same lifestyle benefits around it. Yeah. Why does someone so gravitated to pay $8 million? Um, I just had ego. No, it's, it's, look, Mosman are fairly unique spot. We've got Balmoral beach is a big draw card for status, right? Is up there. It's a beautiful beaches. But we've also inside Mosman, we've got Queenwood girls school. We've got Mosman prep, we've got Queenwood junior school. We've got Redlands just there. We've got Shore just down the road. Um, so it's a, it's a breeding ground where people are going to be there for 20 years, so they're going to buy a house. They're going to upgrade along the way as they, uh, you know, change, change jobs or get IPOs or whatever.

Veronica: They do stay. Yeah, they do stay. So the larger Federation, you've got a nice combination.

Geoff: So recently, um, a client of mine, um, a property came up for sale. Um, he bought it for $4.8 million, was a three bedroom house and he sold his larger home or $5.2 million. So was almost a changeover next door. So he bought the house next door because it was smaller. Okay. But he's still live a walk through the shops. Yeah. So his lifestyle hasn't changed. He's just got less house to worry about.

Veronica: He probably paid above market.

Geoff: Uh, I think he did well actually. Yeah. I think he did well cause the house next to the one he just bought, uh, sold a year or so ago for $7.2. Oh he's, he's in good company. Yeah.

Veronica: No, no, but what I mean is that he's, circumstances were such that for him it'd be worth much more because he absolutely values that position.

Veronica: Yeah. Probably more than that. Another bar, I think that would be valued equally with another street.

Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. Good reasons to buy it and, and uh, the numbers worked for him.

Chris: Yeah. I think another thing is that, yeah, it's quite, we're quite getting to a little bit is that it's also like a massive part of it is that know they've seen over the last 20 years how that assets performed and there's this real conception that that's worked for me. If I buy a house at five, I'll be able to sell at one time in the future, eight or nine. And is that that that consensus view within the area, it means that people don't sell in downturns and then I also, yeah, re leverage back into the area. So there's this kind of constant belief that prices are going to keep on rising. And I think that's what gives that, yeah. End of the day when you're going to go on site to check for or are going to go pay $5 million. I mean you really only do that with the confidence knowing that at some point in the future you're going to get your money back. Yeah. I, I don't know, I just feel that real,

Veronica: I don't know, you know, I think that the upper level caught off.

Geoff: There's a level on, there's a level where it's all about convenience and lifestyle and also that, that single properties and the extent of the property holdings. So they've also probably got the place at Thredbo. Um, they might have one at the Hunter Valley and they might have one at Whale beach. Hmm. So, um, it's, and, and there's also the boat and there's, there mayu be a plane, you know, so you don't know what they've got or you just have to assume that the guy who comes in and he's board shorts and thongs, he'll buy what he wants to buy.

Veronica: You know, when you read title deeds, you often read of people, high net worth individuals trading, you know, multiple million dollar properties and not making great gains over, over, you know, significant periods of time. I don't think that's a primary driver. I'd personally, I think it should be because I think, you know, the end of the day, it's a lot of money. It's an asset, but you know that they're obviously buying very different reasons and not seeing it as an investment.

Geoff: Yup. Yup. Well looking at a house recently for $12 million. And um, the gentleman that was showing me in the house said, Oh, the owner will be back in Sydney next week. And I said, okay, and he, he'll be staying at this hotel. I know. I said no, why does he stay at that hotel instead of this house? Because he owns the hotel. So it's a different ball game. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris: And in terms of, um, you know, the whole kind of suburb getting influences cause a lot of fear. There's a lot of foreign investment and um, yeah, there's all, they're buying all their homes, etc. Did you see in the boom times? Yeah, a lot of money. I'm into that kind of upper premium market and really or, they really gravitate to other pockets of Sydney. For example. like Bellevue Hill.

Geoff: Look, the, there's always been a lot of money in the, in the suburb. And what we probably saw in the boom time was, um, good money coming down from Wahroonga, um, where people were selling estates. So 2000 square meters, you know, a $12 million house up there and they bring their $12 million closer to the city. So they're either going for, uh, an apartment style applies, you know, down towards the toaster or what Walsh Bay or something like that. Or they're trying to find something in the Mosman with the Balmoral view, which shows them that they're closer to the city. So it's actually fine.

Geoff: What about Chinese investors and things like that. Did you see a lot in your pocket? Is this frankly, there's people that look Chinese who speak like you and I do, cause they are three or fourth generation, you know, so I don't call them Chinese per se. T.

Chris: here is a lot of out of that misconception that there was so much money coming from overseas and that's what's causing our boom. And I didn't, didn't believe it. I'd still don't believe it. But you know, I'd just be curious to say that you know, anecdotally in your pocket though, because it is a premium market. Sure, yeah. Anyway they could buy establlished was if they had had some type of residency or daughter or son or something like that. So I just curious see if you to say.

Geoff: Look there there were, there were examples of it but they were completely outweighed by locals buying property.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny, I remember seeing a couple of, I'm Australian born Chinese, like a few of them actually saying this during the height of the boom when there was all this press about the Chinese buyer and, and, and pushing up auction prices in certain areas. You see, you see it too. Cause there there, there are certain suburbs where it was particularly um, visable and these Australian born ones were laughing just saying how that they were able to, one, they didn't have anywhere the amount of money, the disposable income that supposedly all these other Chinese mainland Chinese had, but they were able to, to scare off, you know, you more Anglo Saxon Australian born um, Ozzy because everyone's paranoid about the Chinese buyer. And so they were actually enjoying the fact that yeah,

Geoff: well it's a lovely story. I had recently a, an auction and the first person who registered was Australian. And uh, I said, uh, what paddle number would you like? And they said, I'll take eight.

Veronica: So I went to one auction once where some Chinese woman put her hand up and which eight, you know, she was very happy with her eight and I went, Oh, I'll show see your eight and old trumpet 88. And I didn't get the auction, I didn't buy it. We didn't buy the property, but I had a bit of fun. Yeah.

Chris: Yeah. So some vendors, you know, to sell a property, I mean, um, yeah. If you're going to give advice, let's say I've got a house on a site right now, what would be some good advice you'd give to a vendor to go in there to get the best possible result and make that whole experience as painless but not as painless, but it's as I get the result they really want end of the day. What would be some advice you'd told them to, to do when you need to plan ahead? So it's not, Hey Geoff, I want to sell my house tomorrow. We want to go and look at your house. We want to get it sale ready. So if the property looking at its best, it's going to sell so much faster than a property that's, that's looking tired. So, um, the first thing people need to do is remember that it's their home and they're responsible for as maintenance and how it looks and that I can't make it look better than it is.

Geoff: So I don't know. I know doing this with my own property, you know, we've had, we've had the tradesmen in for the last two months, you know, re honing all of the, all of the, uh, uh, the stone work, you know, and cleaning down stuff and repainting and pointing and doing the, redoing the garden and, you know, we'd been there 15 years, so we need to bring it up to speed before we're going to present it to the market. And then people will come in and go, wow, no expense, nothing to do. I'm happy to happy to buy this one. You know.

Chris: Get it ready. Like, really try to, if you can, like don't sell the car with the little dends and stuff, getting a little DNC out, picks up the tires, you know, make it look good and then, you know, you'll get the, you'll get sale after that.

Chris: Let's say I do that and I present it well. What are some of the other things that you can give me? Is it tip to make this process the best?

Geoff: Well, the first thing that we do is, is introduced the property to buyers agents because they've great to work with. They're engaged with the probably if, if they think it's going to suit their client, then I've got an ally helping me to sell that house. So, um, you know, as a buyer's agent will, um, create their own profile on the property and give their own reasonings why this is the one that meets their brief. And um, that's very helpful to me because if it is the property they want to buy, um, then it's just about what prices it. Yeah.

Chris: So sellers shouldn't be scared of buyers agents. No, we love buyer's agents. You know, agents should love buyer's agents.

Geoff: And sellers should love buyer's agents because, so, so reality check, you know, um, and if prices in doubt, it doesn't hurt to get some buyers agents through too, to let the owner know where they see it sits. And that sort of leads into another question that I've got, which is, you know, what are some of the things that vendors do to stuff up their own campaign? Um, they sometimes, like they don't understand that when an offers a really good offer, you know,

Veronica: isn't the agent's job,

Geoff: there's, well, there's still at niggling thing in the back of their head, they're taking advice from somebody who is a meaningful friend or, or a relative who has no experience with the market, but has convinced them that it's worth more than that. Yep. I'm a neighbor or a neighbor. I mean, neighbors love, you know, neighbors always say prices.

Geoff: Oh, should've gone for more than that because therefore that would make my house worth more. Yeah. So there's always that side of it as well. But, um, I remember when we were selling a property once and, and I said to my wife, well, this is our offer. And she said, is that it? And I said, would you pay that for the house? She said, no. I said, well, we've found one person that will, you know, we had choices to accept their offer or we've bought the house back for the same price, you know, and we already own it. We don't need it. I mean that's really when they should be taking that off though.

Chris: When that you have got that one person, eh, it's kind of come back a couple of times is increased their offer. Oh, from your world? Four to four. Two, four, four. Yeah. Um, you know, and really there's no, they've only got one buyer. Yeah.

Geoff: Look often is often Chris, only one buyer and it's a matter of working with that buyer. I mean, I know a property recently that when they had a guide of $8 million on it, there was an offer of $7.6 which was a very good offer. It was turned down and the property sold six months later for $7.2m. So, you know, it at that stage, the, the owner didn't understand where the property is set in terms of buyers or the values.

Veronica: Oh, is that the same challenge for you too? Isn't it? Because you at that sort of more expensive level, like you said earlier, there's not as many comparable styles. So it's like, well where will someone go for this? You know, you've got the bell curve. There's not that many buyers of that end either. So it's, it comes down to their individual requirements, their individual budget, their individual decision on what they think it's worth. It's all a bit arbitrary in some ways, isn't it?

Geoff: Yeah, exactly. And yeah. Why is this house with $20 million? This one's $25. Mm. And I had, we had, we just saw it on that. Yeah.

Veronica: That is ego, isn't it? Well, it's the vendor and the buyer.

Geoff: It's a bit of both. You know. Um, I mean, we had some pushback from, um, a potential buyer who said yes, if there's going to be a renovation of another property in the street that he wasn't interested in the property because of the noise. Right. Will you, you can't control those things. You know, there's, yeah. So some people that live outside of their own world and live in everybody else's garden. Yeah.

Chris: It's funny the way I'm looking at a property and the neighbors, it's quite funny. I was actually, Oh, you know, check out the name and might've said this story before, but walked up around the back of the property and the back of the house was burned down and so, and they had no, like they did later in the campaign, they had safety tape around the properties was very clearly by the time it got to the auction that this house, it was kind of get knocked down, but you know, and, but then as, as a buyer, we were like, look baby on the way you're going to be living next to it for a year or two and probably was the thing that totally turned us off.

Veronica: Yeah. I mean I guess, yeah, hang on me though. Cause if the reality is, and this we find this, cause you know we always check da activity and see well someone going to renovate next door, et cetera, et cetera. I'm in the process of renovating and it's funny cause every time I sit and tell somebody that extended the renovation, that's not a renovation, that's a rebuilt entity is a rebuild. Right. And so I'm renting while that's happening and such. So happens, my neighbor at the moment is doing exactly the same thing as I'm doing in the next suburb. My neighbor wasn't as considerate to me as I was to my neighbors. I have to say he didn't bother mentioning that, Oh I'm moving out because tomorrow the demolition squad come in. Um, but I think to myself and my neighbors have been fantastic. Actually. My new, actually my neighbors of the, where I'm renovating my house and I'll be moving in because I see it as a benefit to the area. Yeah. The whole area is being upgraded but it is quite temporary. And if you do get a bit of a discount buying it because it turns out the buyer's off. It's a short term thing really in the whole scheme of things

Chris: This didn't turn off any buyers like it went for a 25% over the guide and away for a huge price and it, it was um, you know, they didn't turn off any buyers. I agreed. I mean in this situation like it would improve the streetscape because the neighbor was a bit of a rundown house. Yeah. If that did turn into a really nice architectural sort of build next to that, it would have the values. So longterm it was probably a good thing.

Chris: See it as well. We thought, well if they are going to do a knock down rebuild, we can just rent this out for 12 months or go rent something else than we could deal with that challenge. Like, you know what I mean?

Veronica: I always find moving twice more stressful than just living through somebody. You know, it's 7:00 AM starts the really noisy bits. There's only for a little while. And then, well, one of the things just touched on is neighbors.

Geoff: And, and I've been in the same house for 15 years because we love our neighbors there. My wife says the things you'll miss, man, most is our neighbors, not the house. Um, and, and again, that's probably why people like coming to a place like Mosman because it's people like us as well. And um, before I got here this morning, I was up at Mosman council and um, they had a four homes on the wall there for the Mosman design awards. So there's, uh, four beautiful homes that have uh, come in there. And so, you know, there's a lot of internal competition to to make it a even a nicer place to be. Yeah. But, um, I had a friend come out from New York and um, we had lunch at the public dining room down Balmoral, and then we finish lunch when they throw us out and we went across to the boathouse and had a beer on the, on the pier there. And he was just gobsmacked at what, how good Sydney is.

Veronica: That is not Sydney.

Chris: It is a certain pocket. Yeah. I mean that is pretty broad. It's open to everybody. It's open to everybody. Everyone can visit if you are willing to pay the $9 an hour parking around there. Um, but I made somebody go, Hey, dress a riot in the hairdressers about the cut. You go, yeah, what do you want mate? And then you say, look, it's up to you. I trust you. I trust your creative genius sort of thing. Or you get some people there who say my own short back and sides and I must go to two on the back, et cetera. Yeah. As a, as a customer though for the barber or the hairdresser, like they have a preference. Right. They want the least have their creativity in there and a bit, but a bit of guidance. Right. W as a vendor or like what sort of vendors? Like what's the perfect vendor for you but not I the, I guess what's the worst, I guess?

Geoff: Um, the, the perfect one is someone that's on the same page. So when I go and meet the vendor in the first place, it's a job interview. They want to see if they want to hire me. But I'm, I'm at a job interview too because if I'm not on the same page with them, I don't want to go through eight weeks working with them. So it's very much, uh, getting to know you situation. And often we're not going to decide either of us if we're the right fit on the day. So it might be a week later they might've seen, you know, done a bit of speed dating with a few others and then come back and say, no, you're the right guy. And I'll say, okay, well I'm decided I'm happy to work with you because you follow, you can follow my process. And your, your um, attitude is that we were this for a reason. You know, we're not testing the market, you know, I know you want to move, you've got other plans then your motivation. So you know, unless a vendor is motivated, it's very hard to work with because they're just not listening.

Veronica: True. I don't have to sell, I can always rent it out. What's all the other lines that they trot out? All of them. You just haven't found the right buyer. If they've got 4.5 million, they've got five has another one yet. I've seen the car they drive. Yeah.

Chris: It's about following your process because you've got a process that works because that's what gets you the customer. The best result. Exactly. Aquatic, quiet. Um, you know, it's sometimes frustrating that, you know, and we don't work with these people sometimes, you know? Yeah. Um, you know, because generally we'll get calls and you know, they do want to take the conversation into a different process and you know, and I, my process will be to find out a lot about you and your plan and where are you going and if this is the right decision or not, and give you guidance and all that. That's what I love doing. That's the fun for me. Yeah. You've got to take that away and say that you just want a mortgage. You want a better rate.

Geoff: Well, I don't really want to do that. There's no way. The process is so important to me that I write that book journey to sold because that's the process. So I can say to people, here's, here's the education you need to work with any agent. If you hire me, this is the process where I'm going to take you from sign up to putting the sold sign up and people have who've read that book have said, you've given away all your secrets. This is like a blueprint of what you do. And I say exactly because the more educated my vendors are about the process, the less the less stress we're going to have. It's just going to be smooth sailing because I'll be able to say really we would have paid 42 chapter three yeah, that's right. Exactly. Chris, you're on board. Yeah. So journey, this all came about because my wife's a travel agent. She's constantly putting together itineraries for people and the best clients let her do her job. Yes. And the worst ones want to do a bit here and a bit.

Veronica: Then in my business I quote those who want to dabble a lot more. Yeah. Invariably they don't go with us.

Geoff: Yeah. My wife has a special file for those ones. But the journey then is not whether it's a, you're going on a trip around the world or you're selling the house, there's a process to do it. And if you follow the steps, it'll all happen to more

Chris: Every week we hear incredible stories of the dumb things, property buyers do, dumb things that ended up costing a whole lot of money and are a whole lot of stress mistakes that can be avoided. Please Geoff, can you give us an example of a property Dumbo? We can all learn what not to do from these stories.

Geoff: I had, um, just, I can't, I had a couple come to, to an apartment. He sort of pushed and she stayed to give a name and number and, and we were having spelling difficulty and number recall difficulty and he then came out, we'll sort of go, nah, it's no good. No good. So they left, but really it was just a toilet stop. I mean, seriously.

Chris: And did he actually go the the toilet?

Geoff: Yeah, and he didn't flush because they want to given him away. I'm like, don't do that. You know, an open sign doesn't mean wait until I know it'll be clean. You know, and no,

Chris: but sometimes when you are looking at houses, so you do get to house the house.

Veronica: Try being. a buyers agent a long, you know, you try to look for a pub early. You ask if you can use the bathroom before we ask to use the bathroom. But it sounds like, I think you've gotta go, you gotta go.

Veronica: I actually find it hilarious in the middle of an open house, you suddenly hear the toilet flushing. You go, yeah. Joking. Testing or walk out.

Geoff: Well the flush is better than the not the flash. Ah, scores. Testing the toilet. That's all he was doing it on you.

Veronica: You always see the best in people cause yeah, you have to have a better dumb. That's not, not, not that there's a bad Dumbo,

Geoff: but it comes back to what I was saying, the, if you're a buyer, make an offer. Because if you don't, you just don't know what's going to happen. And I think people have to understand and offers not binding and offer just gives you some credibility that you could be a potential buyer interest. Clear interest. Absolutely. And then you'll get you, you'll, you'll be in the story rather than find out later when you didn't have any, Oh, but I was interested in, so you know, took a contract, you didn't call me back, you didn't respond in any way. So when the agents call you back, it's not to annoy you. They're trying, trying to qualify. If you're the buyer for the property, you know, and there's, there's 50 people looked at it and there's one house, so not everyone's going to get to buy it. You know, we've got to find that one person.

Chris: So offers are a funny thing though. I mean it offers, Hey mate, you know, would you make an offer? We are, I'll give you 2 million for it. You know, I mean it's probably could be a bit pointless. It could be a bit of a label. It's also, you know, it's not really an offer until it's probably in writing and it's not really then an offer if it's still on a contract and then it's not really there now. Oh, for, unless you've got a 66W right. I mean, how do you like, what's like, do you be the, and what's the best thing from a buyer? Do you be a bit stealth and say, I'm thinking about making an offer. Uh, and then I go in with the kill with a 66 w I mean, what do you think gets the best result?

Geoff: Um, when I've been a buyer and I have to buy houses from time to time, um,

Chris: or the buyers, we're getting the best result from you.

Geoff: Yeah. Uh, the ones that get the best result from me are the ones that are open. And, and I've had people come in and say, uh, yeah, your guides two and a half, here's contract at two and a quarter. And, you know, put it on the table and say, we're ready to go. And my response will be, well, I can't accept that. I'll have to talk to the owner. Right. And then they get in their Bentley and drive away. So you go, Oh they must have more nice try. But um, you know, at least we've got a place to start from. And the the, that property ended up selling it two and a half because they showed that they were interested. They were at that point we just had an agreed on the number. That's all right. So they'd agreed on a number without a discussion amongst, with me. So always discuss it with the agent. It might save you a lot of time.

Veronica: Well in that particular instance you were quoting two and a half. Is that for sale or at auction campaign?

Geoff: That was a for sale, yeah. Okay. So the asking price effectively was two and a half. Yeah. Well if we go to the trouble of putting it all on the table, he'll take it, you know, because agents will buckle and my response, the opening opening gamut. No. So the problem that they, they, the, where they went wrong was they didn't discuss it with me first. They just came in and said, there's the offer is valid until the end of the day. All right, so I don't respond well to, um, timelines like that because I said, well, what if I can't reach him today? What if he's out on his boat? You know, what if he's, you know, so you give me an arbitrary deadline and what happens if I get back to you tomorrow and say, yes, Oh, well we'll take it tomorrow. Well then we don't have a deadline today, do we? I.

Veronica: t's true. The arbitrary deadline, everyone says it's best practice. You got to put a deadline on it. Well, there's got to be meaning behind that deadline. And I agree. You know, you've got to talk to the agent and make sure that you've logistically possible. Exactly. Like the owner might be in Pulgia. Yes.

Chris: just that I had a conversation with you though. Then they said, well, you know, we're thinking about making an offer.

Geoff: You know, if we do come in, we'd like to put in an offer at two and a quarter. Yeah, yeah. On the price.

Chris: So maybe if they want to say, I don't want to tell you what I'm going to offer, then they come in and Oh, you look, this is our best offer. Yeah. You told us that your owners in town. Yeah. Yeah. You should be able to make a decision on this today. Yeah. Would, you know, do you think that's going to put them in a bed a lot with a 66 w et cetera?

Geoff: They get a B they get in and be the probably the best offer of the day, aren't they? You know, so then it comes back to the owner. Is the owner ready to sell today at that price? Uh, we are we one week into the campaign or we, uh, we after auction, you know, or after sale, how long we'd been on the market, what other offers have we had? This is the point. If there had been no other offers, the owners only got a reference of an offer below where they w they think they need to be. So that's the point of buyers making offers is to help owners understand where, where the pool of buyers are. Yeah.

Veronica: And then there's the thing that's always hard to get an owner to understand if there's no offers, cause their prices are too high. Buyers only respond to the price, let's say being represented by somebody who understands how it all works. Yeah. But you know, they respond to the price, don't they? So if it's too high, they just, you get crickets and so then you're chasing it because the owner and the owner's like, well I've had no offers so therefore I won't move my price. Yeah.

Geoff: So the worst thing that can happen in any campaign is no offers because that's what the owner's waiting for. Yep. And I've got one at the moment who says to me, we've been on for 10 weeks and I don't have an offer. And I said, I know we've talked about it, haven't we

Veronica: 10 week Wow. That's testing your patients.

Geoff: Go online, don't we? We need to advertise the property. Oh, so it's not really on market secret. I love it. So the price, because I don't want to sit, they don't want to pay the advertising all the time.

Veronica: They don't want to sell that. I really want to sell?

Geoff: Well there's a question. So being between listing it and where we are today, they have actually moved out of the properties.

Veronica: It's funny cause you know, you talk about off-market, so I guess we've got to wrap up in a minute, but you, but you talk about off markets being transacting around about 20% in your market and there was a lot of buyers. It seemed to think that when there's no stock around, that's the answer. I want to buy an off market property and sometimes it is the answer and we get access to a lot of off markets. Um, but often it's not because you've got owners that often aren't that motivated. So do you find that you get a lot more off markets that don't sell then do sell or what?

Geoff: Yeah, good question. Um, I think it comes down to their head space of the owner. If the owner is doing off market because they really don't want to advertise it because they've got other stuff going on, then they're open to offers, you know? And, and again, the price they get for the house may not be the most important thing to them. It, you know, there's other stuff going on. And I think that's what we all forget is that, you know, it, it's, again, people say to me, but what happens if someone puts in the same offer? We both put in the same number. Well, you want to settle in 12 weeks and this one person wants to sell in four weeks. That's a, that's part of the offer. You know, so the settlement terms are the owner actually wants to stay through to Christmas. So the longer terms suit them better than the shorter term, you know, whereas you would think they'd want their money quicker. Not everybody does.

Veronica: asking questions, isn't it? Yeah.

Geoff: You know, so again, that whole conversation around an offer, it's not just about the number, it's about the circumstances around that. Hmm. Um, I know I recently had a property which sold and, and now we're in the before settlement stage and the owners are saying, Oh, we want 1$0 grand for the barbecue and the outdoor heaters. And I said, well, well I think you'd be taking them with you then contracts like that. That's not going to happen. It's not my decision, but I can, knowing the buyers are going to say you can make sure you take them with you. Um, so there's different, different, you know, things.

New Speaker: One property sold last week cause I was pretty shocked. Um, this is on the Tuesday, on the Wednesday that isn't open. I saw it on the Thursday, but they starved this place.They'd spent, I don't know how much styling is sometimes it's $15k Yeah, it was pretty easy. Yeah. I mean it was a pretty good job. All the, all the photography, the list cetera and it's sold in two days. It didn't actually even have a Saturday open. It's all for a good price, not a super price. I mean I just, less speed might've been why they really wanted to sell it.

Geoff: Like it says possibility Chris, that the agent had been working with their buyer for some time and, and you only saw two days on the market. They've had discussions for a month about it. And, um, you know, sometimes it takes coming onto the market to, prompt that buyer to do it. You know, it's interesting. Yeah. Because our, we, you know, and when I talk about a, uh, an off market sale, it's an off market sale at the moment before we go online. So if you, you've got a, a genuine opportunity to buy it now, but if you don't, then when you see it advertised, you'll have competition

Veronica: And it can go either way. Because, you know, I bought a property in April that it come to me off market in December and I know December was pretty flat market, but you know, I bought an April for $800,000 less. They wanted it in December and it was always overpriced in December. Money, Tyro. And we're just gonna wait for this one to come on. Michael. We needed to come onto market. And then on the flip side, one of my team Dean, he had an opportunity to buy an apartment in, in Paddington and for a client and we would've been able to close the deal at $1,050M. Um, the client decided against it. And so then it did subsequently go to market and a sold $1.25 so there's a $200,000 opportunity or an $800,000 a waste of money. So, so there are not all exactly the same, but yeah, it can certainly go that way.

Geoff: And equally I can show property I just sold a property to, to a young lady who saw it on the first day and she bought it two days before auction because it took that long to get her for her loan approval. You know.

Veronica: Few days before auction. Yeah, we've got problems.

Chris: Like just send them my way. We can sort those out. They'd probably do that now. I really appreciate the chat has been very interesting and lots, lots around, lots of different areas of the market and I think that the prestige market we haven't spoke about too much. So that's us.

Veronica: Absolutely. And we're going to put the link, uh, Geoff is actually generously offering a, one of his books for free, which is sold above market. So we'll put the link in the show notes so that you can download that

Geoff: he other one. Journey to Sold in all good bookstores right now.

Chris: You can buy that one. Yeah. Thank you Geoff. Thank you. Thanks. We want to make you a better elephant rider and this week's elephant rider training is,

Veronica: let's continue that conversation that we had with Geoff around making offers. Now in previous episodes when we've interviewed agents, and I highly recommend going back and and listening to those ones too, that spring to mind are the interviews with John Cunningham and Georgie Bates is when you are making an offer, you need to understand the rules of engagement. And what that means is, you know, Geoff talked about it, communicate with the agent. Now he's, you know, he just wants an offer and he wants to make sure that he's got the best chance of it getting accepted and that's really what they want. You know, and you as a buyer need to understand how you're going to position your offer and put it together so that you've got the best chance of being accepted as well. You don't want to give too much money away, of course. And quite often buyers play silly buggers and they actually get agents off side or they make offers and they don't understand that logistically it's impossible to get an answer from a vendor and the time that they've given.

Veronica: There's so many nuances to getting an offer accepted. And the one thing that I want to sort of really touch on here is that rules of engagement. So before you make an offer, no are bang on about this till the cows come home. You really need to work out what it's worth. You need to actually have done all your due diligence and fully understand exactly what you're buying and actually be ready to buy the property. Don't be making offers until you are definitely don't make offers on a Saturday at the end of the open house. You know you haven't thought things through enough. It's quite often people make offers and then I think about it afterwards and realize that they made too high on offer. So first of all, you've got to actually set yourself up and understand what it's worth in the market and also what it's worth to you and you've done all the things that you need to do in terms of due diligence, but then when you are ready to make that offer, yes, you need to sound out the agents say, look, I'm thinking about making an offer at X sort of level.

Veronica: What terms are important to the owner? You know, like what settlement terms, et cetera, that he talked about. That's the time to talk about inclusions. If you want that particular light fitting or the fridge included, you need to work out well, what's the appetite to do that or not and how will you treat my offer? What will you do once I give you an offer? Because you need to know are they going to put you on ice and then shop you around to every other buyer or are they going to just give you a clear run or are they going to give everyone a deadline? I mean, what are they going to do? You need to understand that and you can't buck the system either. You need to sort of work with that agent on that, but you can't go and making an offer and expecting it just to suddenly be accepted. Particularly if you're going in with a low ball. If you haven't done all that pre-work.

Veronica: Please join us for our next episode when we talk about the absolutely thrilling topic of insurance. Now this could be really boring but it's not because we have a very animated and passionate insurance advisor, Craig Bigalow join us. We are going to find out how to avoid being underinsured and how to avoid being over insured and also some of the pitfalls of insuring inside of super outside of super how we need to protect ourselves, our families, and our biggest asset.

Chris: Don't forget we're on all the social channels. We're on Facebook, we're on LinkedIn, we're on Twitter.

Veronica: or you can connect with us on the elephant in the room.com today you, the links are all there for you.

Veronica: Please connect and send us a message. We'd love to hear from you. www.theelephantintheroom.au This Property podcast is recorded at the Sydney sound brewery. This week's podc. ast was recorded by John Hresc, editorial by Gordie Fletcher.

Chris: Until next week. Don't be a dumbo.

Veronica: Now remember, everything we talked about on this podcast is general in nature and should never be considered to be personal financial advice. If you're looking to get advice, please seek the help of a licensed financial advisor or buyers agent who will tailor and document their advice to your personal circumstances with a statement of advice.