Episode 181 | How to successfully negotiate | Veronica Morgan, Good Deeds

How do you negotiate a purchase and get the best result?
In this Negotiation Masterclass episode, we turn the tables as Chris Bates interviews Veronica Morgan, discussing the do's and don’ts when it comes to negotiating for property and how to succeed during challenging market conditions. The recent property boom has left buyers destitute with properties selling pre-auction, off the market and far above the reserve. As a result, buyers give up and hope for a market crash that will never come.

This episode will educate new buyers and experienced property investors alike, with Veronica hitting key issues facing those entering today’s market.

What you will learn:

Stop agents taking advantage.
How to not miss out at an auction.
Checking out competition at open houses.
What you should know after your first inspection.
How to conduct your initial offer and potential counteroffers.
How to keep yourself in check to not react or no action.
When to know to let a property go
Who you should seek advice from

GUEST LINKS:
Where to Buy Workshop details:
www.homebuyeracademy.com.au/workshop

How to Price a Property free mini course:
https://homebuyeracademy.com.au/freecourse

Veronica’s book:
www.getauctionready.com.au
Listener 30% off discount + free postage - use Promo Code: ELEPHANT

HOST LINKS:
Looking for a Sydney Buyers Agent? www.gooddeeds.com.au
Work with Veronica: https://linktr.ee/veronicamorgan

Looking for a Mortgage Broker? www.wealthful.com.au
Work with Chris: hello@wealthful.com.au

Send in your questions to: questions@theelephantintheroom.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 in June 2021.

Chris Bates: No matter what the market is doing, what your situation is or where you're looking to buy buys. Almost always feel on the back foot, trying to figure out how to win the game, but property negotiation to secure their dream home or investment property.

Veronica Morgan: Welcome to the elephant in the room. This is the podcast where we love to talk about the big things in property that never usually get talked about. I'm Veronica Morgan, real estate agent buyer's agent co-host of Foxtel's location, location, location, Australia, and author of auction ready.

Chris Bates: And I'm Chris Bates mortgage broker. Before we get started, I need to let you know that nothing we say on here can be taken as personal advice. We always recommend you engage the services of a professional.

Veronica Morgan: Don't forget that you can access the transcript for this episode on the website, as well as download our free fall or forecast report, which experts can you trust to get it right? The elephant in the room.com did I, you,

Chris Bates: In this episode, we're going to do something a little bit different and I'm going to unpack the marvelous mind minder, my cohost, Veronica, as we all know, she spent years on both sides of the property negotiation. So I thought I would do a little bit of extra education myself on how to get better at property negotiation. Now to be blunt, I honestly feel knowledge is not enough in negotiation and the third party, like a trusted local specialist. Buyer's agent always have the edge. This episode is targeted. If you want to go it alone. So without the need for any introduction, let's do this. Oh,

Veronica Morgan: Thanks for having me. I'm Chris.

Chris Bates: And it's beyond I'm I guess a little bit curious. You're not get lots of questions all the time with clients, you know, what should I do? You know, what, what should I make an offer? And I always say, look, you know, the, what you need is Intel from local buyers agents, but let's say they don't want to use a buyer's agent. So I think this is what this episode is about. It's, you know, let's say you're just the average punter on the street. I mean, the real risk is agents getting everything you've got, which we'll talk about. I mean, there's another one we've got clients who, you know, just have consistently the last, you know, the one who misses out, you know, they're so close, it's like 10 grand and they, they miss it. I mean, there's also, what do you do if it's not about winning at auction this episode as well, because I know you've written a book on that and you're very passionate about that auction, but how do we buy before?

Chris Bates: Or if it passes in or it's on the market after an auction, how do you get it after auction, but also some of the do's and don'ts with negotiation. I know that I was absolutely awful trying to play this game. When I was even at a buyer's agent a couple of years ago, I was doing everything to butcher the deal. So that's kind of the main things we want to get today. But I think the, where I want to start is literally at the start. And so let's say you're first thinking about buying a property is coming. What do you, should you do first before you go to the market, you just don't have a look. Do you start going to auctions? Do you research first? I mean, how do you get your mindset rights? It's

Veronica Morgan: Actually interesting because in home buyer academy with Megan, we actually have surveyed a lot of first home buyers. And it's interesting that you bring this up because the feedback we get is that so many first home buyers turn to mortgage brokers for advice, when they're looking at putting in an offer and it's like, well, how much should I pay? How do I do it? Should I make a prediction of, ah, and, and so you just sort of run through a whole bunch of thoughts and questions, and it's just interesting that you brought this up. So, okay. So when you first start looking to buy a property, it's, it's so exciting. You know, it feels like going shopping and it's, you know, it's full of hope and you get out there and quite often people start online and they're looking, and they're often looking at what's being advertised and looking at the price guys.

Veronica Morgan: And they're thinking, oh, it's all very affordable over achievable. And when they actually get the money in their pocket, or when they've actually got their finance approved, they're ready to buy it. And that's when they get out and start looking. And that's a bit late, really, because the reality is what you see online, unless you're really looking heavily at sold properties rather than what's on the market. And or unless you tracking those sale prices, you going to have a complete, not a disconnect between what is and what's possible and you know, what you're hoping for. And so that getting out and looking and educating yourself as to the possibilities for different budgets, the compromises you're going to need to make the ways agents operate, just going to auctions, observing, you know, tracking sale prices, seeing what a property looks like in the flesh, rather than online. All of that staff is really essential preparation, but it's what a lot of people don't do. And so then they're on the back foot when they actually do start it because they've got money, but they, their expectations and their budget often are not aligned. And yeah, so, and particularly if you're in an auction area, you need to get to auctions. I can't tell you the amount of people I've met, who are bidding at the first auction they've ever attended. And I just think, oh my God, I

Chris Bates: Think you're right. I think some people have the, I don't want to look at properly because I want to buy it. So I'm not going to look at it. You know, I don't want to go into a clothes shop and look at clothes. Cause I know I'm going to walk out with 10 clothes, you know, and spending a thousand dollars. And some people have that impulse sort of tendency. And so they know that they don't want to sort of get them all excited if they know they can't buy it, but absolutely it should be doing the opposite. Right? Like even though you're not pre-approved yet. I mean, that's definitely something you should be doing before you seriously start getting, looking at properties, but you know, going to auctions, I think that's a key thing because a lot of people look at it and go, I'm not ready for that auction.

Chris Bates: It's next weekend or it's tomorrow. And I haven't even looked at the property and I'm not even ready to go. So there's no point going, but just going to that auction and getting reference point, because that's what you really know the price, right? Like if something sells, you know, if it's price undisclosed, you don't really know what it goes for. Or even just, you know, seeing how many people are in the market, how hot it is, right. How many other bidders are around your price point? Do you think they would look at, to look at different properties that they may not even be able to afford?

Veronica Morgan: I think what they should do is they start off looking in the area. They want to look for the top property. They think they're going to be buying and then they probably will be looking at what they can't afford anyway, it's human nature. Right. so, and that, but that is the starting point. I mean, because if you get too broad, you're going to overwhelm yourself. And a lot of buyers spend a hell of a lot of time. Ping-Ponging all over the place, you know, trying to get their head around different areas, different price points, work sort of stuff. So you can, you can go the other way too. You can actually look at too much. So sometimes you can just saturate yourself and then get bamboozled. It's actually, you know, it's why we put together the, where to buy workshop on home, our academy actually, because, because you know, th this is sort of a do it yourself version of our onboarding process when we bring in clients to the business, because you do need to focus your attention, but you can't focus it without actually understanding what the possibilities are.

Veronica Morgan: You know? So that's, and that's a hard thing. It's chicken and the egg, but you you've got to. And then, and then what I often say too, is that people, they set their budget all wrong, you know, that they set it for what they think they should be by spending or what they feel comfortable with or, or what they hope or whatever. Or they go to the mortgage broker. And I mean, you tell me this, I guess my understanding is that when money is easy in that the banks are happy to give money away. A lot of people cut themselves short and do not go to their maximum. And then when restrictions kick in, everyone's working out all sorts of ways to actually squeeze as much money out of the bank as possible. And so what, what I say to people is that, look, you know, I'm not going to talk to you about your affordability.

Veronica Morgan: I can't do that. I'm not on the finance side of things. However, you do need to understand how far you are able to go to if necessary for the perfect property. So it's an infinite and it's all those provisos. But if you start off your search with capped at what you feel comfortable with, and you're, you've missed the mark, you're out of, you're out of sync with the market, the amount of time it takes you to catch up and work out where you need to be. You've lost ground. You might be a bedroom short, or you might be borrowing much more money than you would have in the first place. If you'd just gone to your max and then actually started looking and worked down from your max rather than app, you know?

Chris Bates: Yeah. And that makes a lot of sense. I think you said where buyers come to mortgage brokers to get advice around making offers. I think that we're constantly saying this is not our expertise you need inside knowledge. You need to know the situation, the vendor and how the agents, you need to know the market and no mortgage brokers going to know that, you know, and so you're asking the wrong questions to the wrong person. And I think with the budget, that is absolutely where a good mortgage broker should be able to help you because understanding your repayments and understanding if you did spend a little bit more, how much those your payments would be. And that's just this morning, I jumped off at a client who's now is looking to do a big upgrade, but they've got very lumpy income. You know, one's a self business architect one's are sort of, I'd say the other job.

Chris Bates: But yeah, very sort of lumpy income to like, how do we, you know, work around repayments and sort of, can I, how do I use an offset account to give me that confidence it's very often happens the other way. Like you said, Veronica people come to us and then they go out and market can't afford what they want. Then they come back to us. Can we increase our budget? And can we increase our budget rather than at least being open to that initially. And then working your way back down to the comfortable budget for yourself. So I guess getting back to that sort of first looking, I mean, agents are pretty good at this. They know that if you're new, hot on the street, you're that new person entering a market that must have like a big sign over your head and they definitely treat you differently.

Chris Bates: I think when they first see you, I mean, what are you saying? Like, do you, how do you answer their questions? Cause they fire them at you. Like yeah, completely unprepared. Like, what's your name? What's your phone number? How long have you been anything in the market? You don't have to go any of the properties to sell, et cetera. So how do you play that sort of first words to the agents when there's usually only a few in the marketplace that own it and they want to put you up on this sort of board or buyers

Veronica Morgan: Look, and they, they work out who the talky cars are and who's realistic and who isn't and who's desperate and who's not, and who just missed out on five properties and is going to pay whatever for the next one. You know, that they know all that. And look, I think, you know, never kit Akita. So the problem is that the agents are smarter than the buyers in this scenario, right. They know that they deal with everybody that heard it all before. Let's face it all your tricky little ways that you try and get around. You know, they have heard it before. So just don't even try to play the game. You don't know the rules. So just be straight up, play a straight bat is what I say. And what that means is that before you finance is easy, I'm not yet financed with going through the process with just getting to understand the market, learn the market right now, if you're straight up with agents, the good ones will actually help you.

Veronica Morgan: They will give you tips. So we'll give you advice or point you in different directions. They're also going to try and sell to you, but they're not going to bother until you're pre-approved. And actually there's an argument. And I know there's an argument out there as to whether you bother getting pre-approved even, but that's not the, we could probably do another podcast on that. So they're not going to, until you're ready to buy, put it that way, finance, ready to buy. They're not gonna, they're not gonna push pressure. You, you know, cause they know that you're just a waste of time in that regard, but you know, be friendly to them. Be nice to them, be open with them. Then when you are finance, you do have a budget. It doesn't hurt to tell them what you're looking up to. You know, it can be a bit vague.

Veronica Morgan: You can go on looking at around one and a half around two, you know, it doesn't have to be specific, but they actually need know vaguely where you're at so that they can actually tell you about listings coming up. You know, the old off-market thing, which is a bit of a furphy, but at the same time it does happen. And an agent isn't going to tell you about property coming up. If they think it's outside your budget. So it's a bit of a catch 22. There you keep your cards close to the chest by the agent, won't know you tell them, and then you worry that they're going to get every dollar out of you now. And that's when it comes to the negotiation, you don't have to give every dollar to the agent just because you told them that's in your budget. You know, there's different ways of going about that whole negotiation process when I'm sure we'll get to that. But I just think don't try to play games. Don't put, don't be silly. Buggers. Just be, just be open and reasonable without actually spilling it.

Chris Bates: Yeah. I mean, that's the point is that, wait, what, where is the line? I mean, I know we're a young couple with, you know, thinking of a new to the area. We're just sussing it out right now. And then they say, oh, well, you know, what are you looking to spend? I mean, when they start asking you more sort of questions around lots of different things, you know, what's your other assets, you know, like sometimes, you know, agents ask these questions, you know, what are you? Yeah, exactly. So where do you sort of like, you know, cause there's information they may want to start to use against you in the future potentially. I mean, should you just sort of try to cut it short and then move through the property and really live at whole back everything around, say other things, you know, maybe a baby's on the way or things like that. Notice that one, but yeah, potentially if it's a, sometimes the first one could be hidden for awhile. Yeah. I mean, how do you sort of play that? Do you sort of try to befriend them or do you know, and B share quite a lot and you know, become mates with them almost in it, you know, in some sense or do you

Veronica Morgan: Yeah. You know, and you, you will start to, the more that you deal with agents in, in a particular area that you're looking in, you will get to know the ones that you you know more able to trust or work with, you know, at the end of the day, they're all looking after the vendor and that is their who's pays their, their bills basically. So you've got to remember that they're all looking after the sale, the seller and any help that they give you is really you know, in, as a, you know, in order to get that property sold or get a future one sold and they always got their radar out to see, well, who's got something who's got my next listing. And certainly when I was a sales agent, that would absolutely be a question. I'd be asking every single person that comes through a property when we do the callbacks on a Monday.

Veronica Morgan: Cause that's normally when they do them, it's like, do you need to sell before you can buy? You know, and it's not like, do you have a property? I can come and appraise. Do you have a listing? They will use more roundabout questions. You know, they're not going to be very, some of them are blunt, they're just learning or they're too stupid to have worked it out. But a lot of them have very, very slick dialogue, very, very clever ways of uncovering stuff. And so if you spend the whole time on your guard, it's just going to be stilted, an awkward, you know, you're probably not going to hide too much from, I think that's what you just have to accept that they are more skilled. Ones are way more skilled at getting information out of you than you are of getting information out of them and just roll with it. Just accept it and stop trying to fight the system. Well,

Chris Bates: That's right, because it would be, you could be shooting yourself in the foot, I guess, because you're trying to hold a pig back. You're trying to get smart. The agents they're going to, you know what, your hard work, I don't even know where

Veronica Morgan: You're at. Well, can I tell you it does actually happen and not often, but enough that where the agent is so annoyed at a particular buyer that we get favorable treatment because we're easy to deal with. And if we buy the property for our client for less money, because we're easy to deal with or for the same money, someone else is prepared to pay and they might go higher because we're easy to deal with. Then that's a huge negotiating event.

Chris Bates: We'll go at the end, Veronica about the buyer's agents can potentially help. And I think that is one of the sort of ways, right? Which we'll talk about at the end, your little pitch on why you still need a buyer's agent. But I think if you get to the, the viewing, right? Like, okay, so you've been, you've got through the front door, you walk around and you're like, you know what? We actually quite like this property. I mean, you know, it's hard to contain your emotions. Sometimes it's subconscious, you know, it's, the whole podcast is about, but I mean, do you show your cane? I mean, always laugh at the pain's ed where I think the guys walking around pretending he's not king, but he's like super excited inside. I mean, do you play it cool? Like how do you play that? Like do you just sort of go in, walk around and then leave or do you start getting the tape measure

Veronica Morgan: Again? You know, the ages have seen it all before the, seeing the guys trying to play it. Cool. And so how like, God, God get over yourself. So just be honest, but I mean, you can go overboard though. I've had clients that want to get out tape measures during inspection, do not do that. What you don't want to do, the agents will be skilled at reading you, but the other buyers won't necessarily be skilled at reading. You said, don't give away too much, but you know, I'd be looking to see how many other people are giving away sort of signs. Absolutely. Cause you want to get a gauge of how other people are responding to this property. And that's a double edged sword, of course, because you want it to be popular because you want down the track. When you got to resell it, you want it to be popular, but you don't obviously want to fight for it.

Veronica Morgan: So it's, it's a hard one. But so in terms of the agent, you really just got to let the agent know you're interested because if you don't that agent won't keep you in the loop, right? And that's the thing you get chopped out of the deal, or you don't get enough early warning that there's going to be something happening. Now, once again, double-edged sword agents can use that to try to, we call it manufacturing an offer out of interested parties, particularly if there's feel that you're the strongest party. So there's, it is careful how you manage this, but at the same time, without letting them know you're interested, you are not going to be part of the deal. So in new south Wales, no, I know we've got listeners all over the country and new south Wales. The first thing you do when you're interested is ask agent for a copy of the contract now in Victoria, be a copy of the section 32, I think it's called, you know, in, in Brisbane there it's, there's not exactly a contract, but there is like an offer document or whatever. So whatever the document or whatever, the actual piece of information you require from the agent to actually move forward, you need to ask for that to flag that you're interested and that's really just burst it. Should

Chris Bates: You be a contract collector? They

Veronica Morgan: Can be one that's irritating people. Yeah. The

Chris Bates: Former Grisel three bells. And we asked the contract for every single one. So they put you down as a series B they're on five properties.

Veronica Morgan: So yeah, I don't do it for every property. Just the ones you're interested in.

Chris Bates: Yeah. So you take the contract, you get out, you don't take the contract. It gets emailed to, you know, most of the time I assume so. Yeah.

Veronica Morgan: We download it from some websites. So they track you. They know when you've done it

Chris Bates: Sort of questions, but you're right. Like that's the Monday is your phone goes nuts or even Tuesday is a bit busy. Right. So what do you do on that call? Right? Like I've, I've got these other contracts you know, you enjoying that. How do you think about the property? Like you do you start to say you're actually quite interested. Do you sort of still play it? Cool. Yeah. I mean, how do

Veronica Morgan: You play that? Yeah, look, we have it depending who see for us once again, buyer's agent, I can, I have relationships with different agents and I know which ones are going to give me better information than others. And I also know that on a Monday after our first opening inspection, they are not even going to know a hell of a lot. Yeah. So, so it's not even like really quizzing them to find out more information and you can ask a whole bunch of really dumb questions and get answers that you don't know what to do with, you know, so quite often I won't even take the call if I'm interested, but I will text them. And I will say, thanks, got your message interested in this property. You know, if I haven't already asked for contemplate semi contract or whatever, but I will flag via techs.

Veronica Morgan: So I'm not having a conversation with them at that time. And I, then we go through our due diligence process and we've got our sort of process of what we need to go through in order to work out what to do next. Right. But it's just letting them know. Now, obviously on the phone, they're going a good agent is going to be asking all sorts of questions about your situation and you know, bad ones, just go, do you like it? And then hang up. So there's all varying degrees of what they're after. Most of them have got their assistants on the phone other than them, you know? So it, it, the actual call itself is going to vary depending on who it is and how skilled they are. So, you know,

Chris Bates: Just the scale of the app, because I can sort of sweeping behind. Right. And they read the real friend that gets the information that you need to tell to their key agent profits, everything you say is shared with them. And I've noticed that they are actually sometimes better than the agent and building the relationship. So yeah, just be careful of them not getting too close. So let's just say, you've you avoid that call? Cause I think that makes sense, right? Like you, if you can just let him know, you're sort of still interested, but you know, I think you answered it. I mean, how many times do you think you should look at the property? If you know, you haven't, you've only seen it for 25 minutes, 10 minutes because you were running late. Cause I had to quit. You got it. A little, we'll get a coffee. Do you prefer to look at it? I mean, if you were buying property for yourself, I mean, I know you don't have this luxury all the time, that's another conversation, but would you want to say it twice or three times different times a day? Like what do you think, how do you play that conversation even like, do you just call them and say, I want another viewing at 4:00 PM because I want to say the light.

Veronica Morgan: How do you do that? At least twice, at least. And we have a practice in our business as well that we really want that client to see it twice. And obviously sometimes clients away or, you know, can't for whatever reason we see it twice. And it could be that two of us see it different times and we will photograph video and all that sort of stuff at different times as well. And then there's certain properties that, you know, if there's a noise, you know, as a question mark over noise or question mark over light or parking or, or if there's a question over, well, what could happen at different times or different days then? Absolutely. But you don't have to actually inspect the property a lot of the time for some of those things, you can actually just go down there and hang out a bit stalk.

Chris Bates: That'd be great. We're doing that too much though. Sitting on the front on the camp. So the market's hot at certain points. Sometimes it's not, let's say you want to say a third time, like, you know, there's an argument, there's this reciprocity effect, which we've spoken about on the podcast as well. You know, they do a lot to sort of help you and you know, I spend a lot of time trying to get you to buy it. Do they want you to sort of be the buyer? You know? And so yeah. Are you asking for too much to say it three times, like a DPC agent off, do you know, should you sort of get that third viewing if you think you need it? Not just for the sake of it

Veronica Morgan: Definitely don't do it for the sake of it because you know, it's like anyone has got a check list and, and totally rigid about how they do things and don't roll with it. You know what I mean? That's just sort of a bit naive, but the thing is that there are some agents who we call in our business. As you, we've probably talked about the podcast before, you know, we've got eight different avatars, different agent types. And obviously you've got to consider the different agent types when you're doing a negotiation. And you know, one of them is the volume agent and they like to smack them at the door. It's all about, you know, oh, we sell more. So we sell them quicker so we can help more people that they are very skilled and slick on dialogue. They're very good at getting, getting you to make offers all that sort of stuff.

Veronica Morgan: And that sort of agent isn't going to be that excited about making special trips to the property they want. They've got a process and they're punching you through that sausage machine. And then you've got other agents that are much bigger on the psychology of it. And they they will work on that reciprocity effect. They will really, you know, that they are more than happy and it will encourage an out of [inaudible] inspections because they know exactly how powerful that can be. It does come down to the individual agent, but sort of in terms of whether you should have a third inspection, it really does come down to, are there questions in your head? Do you need to go and have another look if you're just doing it because you're not sure it could be that you're just nervous a nervous person, but it also could be that you're really not sure about the property.

Veronica Morgan: And so if I see you got to be, I guess, have enough self-awareness to work out, what is it with you? If you're just nervous, Nelly, then more times you look at it probably is not going to help you. If you do have question marks and niggles, you do need to go and have another look, this is million multimillion dollar purchase. You know, don't be shy about asking to see it more times. And we used to have a joke when I was selling. It was like, if someone sees it four times as the death knell, you know, it's like they're indecisive or whatever. You know, the person who bought my house back in 2015 actually saw it four times. And I did say to the agent, they'll never buy it. And he said, no, he said, he said, I thought the same thing, but I bet they will. And they did.

Chris Bates: Yeah. Well that meant to us. We were the fourth hearing on a place and the fourth daughter for us, what a couple of open homes, one private. And then we got a second private at applies because it was a niggling thing around the lot. And that actually was through the deal news cycle that we didn't buy that one. But you're right. I was the fourth one. Yeah. You mentioned that the open homes and sussing out the competition, I mean is part of that, the best thing about negotiation, knowing how many other people are interested. You know, agents will always sell you this pigs of interest. Sometimes there's

Veronica Morgan: Not enough interest at the moment. They're saying six contracts out. It's like every property six contracts is, oh yeah.

Chris Bates: Like getting there, let's say you assignment, you are serious. You know, you went to a first open on a Saturday and the next step opens on a Wednesday or next Saturday, should you get there early? Should you suss out the competition? Should you be having a little checklist out telling us that when people went through, should you be doing that? I mean, or are you starting to sort of over-complicate things I think

Veronica Morgan: You're, over-complicating it, the problem is with that sort of information is what are you gonna do with it? You know? And look, I know what to do with it, but do you, you know, does he, does the average buyer know what to do with it? I would say no. So, so I don't think it helps. So just think what, what I often hear people overthinking and that is when they, they do go along and they start to sort of look at the other people and then they start imagining their life stories, you know? And then they've got, you know, they've, they've sort of worked these entire negotiation scenarios in their heads and it's like, oh my God, you were so over thinking this fun

Chris Bates: Guy and for, but I don't really go that sort of hypothetical game. I'm a bit more of a practical sort of like a shoe don't know what I don't know. And I'm not going to assume some personalities. They do you know, reading everything about people and building up the whole lifestyle where they're out in a fog.

Veronica Morgan: I heard some for seriously store. I mean, I don't think it helps them buy a property. I just helps him show me that they've got a slight emotional problem or I've got one client who we actually just bought for last week. And it's hilarious. They'd been looking for quite a while and they looked at everything and every agent knew them. And even to the point that when we bought, I've got congratulation, you know, texts and messages from a number of agents, oh, it's so good that you bought for these guys. They have been looking and they're so active in the way that they look. And they've obviously got a genuine interest as well, but they've actually met other people like them along the journey. They've now referred somebody that's like them. And they're like, oh, you know, now we're not competing with them because we were competing for the same properties now.

Veronica Morgan: So that's sort of interesting that they actually made friends with other buyers. They got two sets of friends that they've made in the process. Right. And so you do, when you are looking in a, in a, quite a finite area, in a set, in a budget, you will see the same people. And that's an extreme example, making friends with them. But when you go to auctions and we do too, we say, oh right, they'd beat up to that on that. And that, and that, and that I walked through an off-market on Saturday afternoon and, and as I'm walking through and there's all these people clocking each other, cause they were all registered at an auction that was pre the a week prior. So that sort of thing happens. And so I guess you can, you know, if you want to start taking notes people and go, well, they stopped bidding at that.

Veronica Morgan: And they stopped putting at that. But you know, that that's sort of, once again, you you've got no background knowledge as to why they stopped bidding on that, on that property. You know, that could have been, you know, for whatever reason, they didn't like it as much as they liked something else. So it could have been that they were trying to avoid going to their maximum and then they decided chucking the talent, just go hell for leather. It could be that, you know, they got scared off by another, another bid bidding style. There's so many reasons why somebody might pull up stumps at a certain price. And so there's only been one auction ever really where I was so confident with the Intel I had on the other buyers that I went in so hard and I knocked everybody out and made the paper, of course.

Veronica Morgan: And it was a bit hairy really, but the reality is my Intel was better than I've ever had on a property. And that was, I knew recent sales. I knew what different buyers had gone up to on different properties. I knew that there were other properties that sold off market. There were more than the offer. I just put in on that property, all that sort of stuff. But I knew all of that. It wasn't in my head thinking out scenarios, you know, this was actual Intel evidence and, and I've, and I've been buying now for what, 14 years or so. And I've only been able to do that with such precision once. Yeah.

Chris Bates: Is that okay? So let's say we just look at the competition. You say, I mean, how hard it is, which is a good sign for you to know when you want to sell it one day, which is you want a property that's hard to buy, easy to sell, easy to buy, hard to sell so we can tell by the terminology, I guess like, you know, I guess Adam's going to ask you a lot of questions and they're going to potentially be saying things to you that might give you a bit of information around sort of the interest or things they want you to do. How do you flip it back to you? Is there any Intel that you want to know as a buyer? Any questions you want to sort of ask the agent that, you know, might help you some way, or is it just literally way too early for this thing? You're just looking at properties. You ask your questions that it later on,

Veronica Morgan: He's the questions that most buyers ask to go, oh, well the vendor sell prior to auction, why's the vendor selling and how many other contracts around, you know, they're the sort of questions that every buyer asks and my answer to asking those questions is, okay. I do believe what the agent tells you and she's usually no. And B what are you gonna do that information particularly given you don't even trust it. So don't ask those questions, easy answer, right? But you can ask different questions such as what's your process going to be. If you get a good offer prior and you know, you get all sorts of answers, but it can be quite telling because it might be the, it really shines a light on the fact, they've got no idea what they're doing and this happens. And I had all that be driven by the buyers on what, well, why would that be?

Veronica Morgan: You're the, you're the agent, you're the sales at? W why would that be driven by that? What do you mean by that? You know, and, and so sometimes, I mean, I had a negotiation another week and honestly, I felt like I was the cat with my poor in the goldfish bowl. Like, honestly, it was just hilarious. This was a, like a sales associate. He's just been given his training wheels to actually go and start using all this dialogue. And I'm like, oh my God, this is just adorable. And, and it was just so predictable as well, you know? And, and look, I can do that because I do this all the time and I've got an ear for it. Right. And every time I hear a new tactic, I think, oh, hang on a minute. I haven't heard that one before. I wonder what they're trying to do now.

Veronica Morgan: Buyers don't know that because they're not in it day in, day out like I am. And so you're not going to be attuned to hear this stuff, but you got to understand that boring questions or dumb questions as I call them to the agent, don't help you. So you've got to ask much more specific questions and you've got to have a reason for asking the question. I E you're going to actually use that information in some way. So when you ask specifically, what's your process, a process. If someone comes in with a strong offer, then they'll tell you, oh, this one's definitely going to watch in. Oh, okay. Why is that? Or, well, we'll shop it around basically. We'll, we'll go through every single contract told until we get the last one standing. Oh, okay. Thanks for that. That's good to know. Or we'll call for best and final offers, you know, or I don't really know, or I haven't thought about that, or I haven't even discussed it with my, my vendor yet or whatever. So just as she answer, we'll give you a sense of how confident that agent is a pulling in a deal very quickly.

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Chris Bates: Mean, a lot of them just say which is it's going to auction, but is that really true?

Veronica Morgan: Not always, no, no. I mean, let's face it. I mean, it's easier for them to go to auction because like, they've got a deadline, they've got a time. They just go right. Lineup, lineup lineup, especially in a hot market, come to auction. I don't want to hear about it. And so, you know, one of our advertisers, a lazy agent, they just die for cover that. I answer emails. They don't respond to calls. I don't as a text messages. It's like, I don't want to know. Don't want to know. I don't want to know fingers in ears. Don't give me an offer. Cause I'm, you know, we're not, we're not selling prior. They don't have to increase their quoting. Like it's all this sort of law don't want to know. Don't want to know. And then you've got right through to agents that actually then will agitate to sell it pry because they want to sell more.

Chris Bates: Mm yeah. It's kind of catch 22 that you could do that. They could just kind of blank everyone. So that's not much effort, right. Just do the open home blank, everyone. If they really get pushy send in the contract, but don't really call them back or anything like that and then get the auction and just sell it. Or, you know, the other argument is that, you know, they try to get the sort of deal done to all the effort of this for open homes and the auction. So I guess I'm agents will probably try to play at different ways, but let's say you do want to make that, that first off. I mean, I get clients saying how I made a conditional offer on a property and like you've done a building, a pest. No, I've done a contract check. No. Okay. So what have you actually done?

Chris Bates: I just told them at the open that I'll be willing to offer them 1.3. I mean, how do you use it? You know, obviously that's probably not the greatest way of doing it, but definitely not. Let's say you want to sort of make offers. I mean, where do you start with that process? I mean, do you do D D before, do you get a check? What are some of the tips you should sort of do the, in person over the phone? Like how do you sort of basket making an offer? That's actually a real offer. Not just you saying Ilana open home,

Veronica Morgan: You know, ages have a saying called buyers are liars. You know, we were talking earlier about what you tell the agent and all that sort of palava, you know, so, you know, you think that you don't trust agents, they don't trust you either. So they aren't going to necessarily trust an offer that is just thrown at them at an open house, because you could go and get shaky feed, or maybe you don't have pre-approval at that level of whatever, you know, so that they're going to want something a bit more substantial from you. And usually that means that an offer in writing, but the most substantial way to deliver offer is on a contract or unconditional, right? That's the most compelling way to make an offer on a property. Now, if the gap between your offer and the acceptance of your offer or that usually that's not of your first offer, by the way, usually that's after some negotiation, the gap between that.

Veronica Morgan: And when you are ready to seal the deal is the most vulnerable period of time because that agent has sold it. And when they've sold it, like they know they've sold it to you basically. And in the absence of you coming forward, if they've got other buyers, they will, their tone of voice changes when they're dealing with other buyers. The sense of urgency is conveyed very, very clearly in a subconscious way, as well as a conscious way to other buyers. So therefore how you deliver an offer is really critical to making sure that you don't open up the opportunity for somebody else to outbid you. So you need to understand the terms you need to understand the circumstances. Is it, is it private treaty or is it auction, you know, in Queensland, for instance, if you're making a private treaty negotiation, you have to understand all the terms that you'd want to put, make that offer subject to.

Veronica Morgan: He can make offers subject to in most places in Australia, just not in new south Wales, because if you're making an offer subject to something in new south Wales, then you're not, you're not making an unconditional offer. You're not making something that the agent is going to be able to bank on. Right. So you've got to understand the terms, the D the actual rules of the game in terms of how offers turning to purchases or sales. Right. And then you've got to close that gap. So when you sort of throw an agent and offer on a, on a Saturday at the open house, well, yeah, sure. They might. They're going to take you seriously, but you're not ready. You've only just seen it. You haven't really thought it through you. Haven't done your research. You haven't worked out the price, you haven't done any due diligence.

Veronica Morgan: You haven't got the contract reviewed you, haven't done your building and pest inspection. You haven't done all the other stuff that you need to do, and you really need to have done that stuff before you make an offer. I believe very rarely do we engage in offers before that. And I had to do that actually just the other day. And I said to the client, I said, I hate doing this, but if we don't do it, because it is going to be sold very, very quickly, you need to be in the game, but it's a place holder because I'm still not going to recommend that you buy without having done the due diligence. We just need to buy enough time. And, and in the end, it went to a buyer who, who was prepared to go in without doing any due diligence, you know, and paid a lot of money for the privilege. And so that's okay. We didn't go ahead in that property, but while the price seemed somewhat reasonable, you know, we've, we've got to play it a certain way, but that's a very unusual way for us to go about it.

Chris Bates: I agree. I mean, that's, to me, it makes sense to get the path of least resistance to the agent, right. And if you're wanting to make an offer and it's a serious, alpha potentially could be something that the guy took with it, we'll show it to the vendor, let's say, but potentially things could go fast really fast. And I guess, it's, you want to be sort of as prepared as, you know, and make it, you know, the object you subject to a building and pest. Okay. Well, that, to me, doesn't feel like a real offer already subject to, I dunno, whatever it might be, conditional finance. I get that as well. Well, you know, you should have your finance or did, you should understand that finance isn't a problem. The valuation won't be a problem, et cetera. So don't throw that clause in there. You're just creating hurdles for the agent, even things like you think, do you get checks for a lot of your clients or do you just sort of say, we'll pay it out, holding deposit? How do you sort of play that?

Veronica Morgan: Yeah. So holding deposit holds nothing. It's just an intention, you know, and in reality, it's it? Absolutely. So what, you know what I mean? So when you want to seal the deal, you've got to pay a deposit. Now that amount varies from state to state in new south Wales. It's typically a 10, 10%, although it can be negotiated down to five in other states, it can be even less, you know, depending on where you are. So how that deposit is paid. I mean, certainly that's one of the things that upfront we get that understanding from clients is like, how will you pay the deposit? And I don't know, what do you mean now? A check. It's weird to think, check a checkbook, but it is a very, very convenient way to pay a deposit. You know, you literally just write the thing out. You can transfer your money into that account. Then you know, that day after you've written the check, if you want to,

Chris Bates: I think it's a visual representation of it as well. Isn't it? I said, it's like, you know, Andy, do you like to do your sort of offers face to face? Like, and this is not for you. For example, if you're a punter on the street, would you sort of just send them an email? Like this is my offer, and this is my contract, or would you sort of go in and give it to them? Or would you just give them a call? It

Veronica Morgan: Really depends on each. And this is why I go back to that question about what's your process. So you have to understand that agent's process. And this is the thing that a lot of buyers get in their knickers in a knot over. They want to go, well, I'm putting it in with a deadline and I'm not going to auction. If you don't take it. And all these sort of threats, and I'm like, that's fine in a S in a buyers market. It absolutely doesn't hold in a sellers market buyers don't have the power in a sellers market, and buyers have to realize it posturing and puffing out their chest and all the rest of it. It doesn't win them any favors and it doesn't actually help them get a deal. And so it's understanding the market conditions, but also understanding the process that the agent will go through and be guided by that process and be cooperative.

Veronica Morgan: It doesn't mean you do everything that they say it doesn't mean you pay them the money that necessarily that they say they want. It just means don't buck the system because the buy that box, the system will probably miss out on the property. So follow that agent's process. They're the ones calling the shots. As I said, the caveat is this is in a sellers market. And so if that agent says, look, I want, this is your deadline, and you need to be her best and final offers on a contract to me by, you know, five o'clock on X day. My question would be am. What if a buyer wants to offer more afterwards? And like, will you actually let people know what the highest offer is? Now, some agents will go, well, yeah, we will. And it's like, well, what's the point of putting your best and final others will say, no, that is it. We will sell with the best and the terms and conditions and offer that the vendor chooses. Right. And you need to know that because there's no point leaving money in your pocket, hoping, because if somebody else had prepared to pay more money, then they're going to buy it.

Chris Bates: I mean, that's always the worry isn't that you either catch 22, you want them to sort of not shop your offer too much for days and days and days, which a lot of agents will sort of do that. Right. They get, get it to the max and then they don't commit. And then they go back around the roundabout. Again, it's a more offers and, you know, sometimes it can take weeks and then maybe they're not even selling it. Right. They don't even update their price guide, which is sort of another. So how do you sort of is any way to sort of stop them, shopping that off? I like, nor is it you know, even those sort of commitments of, are we going to pull out or while you're going to lose some other property or do you think it's, you've just sorta got to whatever they want to do. That's what they're going to do. Well,

Veronica Morgan: Yeah. And the problem is of course, that when there's an offer situation versus an auction it's blind, and this is one reason that that buyer start making offers because they want to avoid the pain of auction. They don't realize that this shopping around process is even more painful than an auction because you cannot see those other buyers. You don't really know whether they exist or not. And you really don't know whether they've made that offer or not. So in an auction scenario, there they are. You know, and this is tough. And so what a lot of buyers don't realize is that they're setting off this process when they actually start the production process, which is another reason once again, to ask the agents process, because if that's what they're going to do, I try not to get involved personally. You can't always avoid it because particularly if they're out there fishing for offers, they're going to find someone to take the bait and then it's on.

Veronica Morgan: And so, but I don't want to inflame the situation. I don't necessarily want to encourage them. So there are times when I will get involved and I will get involved with a very strong offer because I'm confident, it's highly competitive. I'm confident with the pricing research that we've done. I'm confident that it's the right property for client. I'm confident we've done all the due diligence as well. And there's nothing that we don't know that we should know. There's a hell of a lot of confidence that goes into negotiating. And it's in that really important information and the background of it. Now, when I'm confident there, then you know, we, we guide the client through. The other thing that I do with clients is I say, right, you need to know your walk-away price before we commence negotiations, because FOMO will kick in and you will start pushing your budget and pushing your limit. And, and you know, when the emotions are running high, I want you to actually set it's a bit like setting a limit before going to auction. I actually want you to push yourself and stress yourself and stress that, that pressure test that limit before you're under threat of losing it.

Chris Bates: Well, I mean, it's hard though, cause it's, it's such an emotional thing, right? Sometimes when people say to you, I'm not willing to go more than 1.8, three, four, and then you go, it gets into negotiation. You know, you start maybe on seven or whatever. Right. And it goes round the roundabout. Now it's at 1.85. And then that fear of missing out that fear of loss, that pain, I'm sure a lot of people sort of change it because at that pain's not real, it's like a hypothetical. But then when that's a real pain, they know they're going to lose it. They sort of adjust it. Right. Like I imagine, but it's worthwhile still going through that process because you can at least see how far you're going away from where you probably thought you were going to go. Is that sort of one of the benefits? Yeah.

Veronica Morgan: I mean, look, you and I have a mutual client and we bought a property for them probably about a month ago now. And it was an interesting, because there were a property about two weeks earlier that we were going through this process with, so first one was an agent that is a well-known volume agent. You know, they basically put you on notice that you to actually pull this auction forward or start negotiations. And I'm like, oh, here we go. So they're going to fish, fish fish until they get that right. Offer that's enough. It's like the tripwire, right? So we knew that and worked with the clients that, right, you need a limit. You need to be thinking about this before this all starts. We know it's going to start. We're not going to set it off, but we know it's going to start right.

Veronica Morgan: So they were ready and they set their limit and we went, we were in that and the price still kept going up and, you know, we'd, we'd hit it with varying beds, but you know, they just going around shopping to other buyers and they're working, working, working, working, and until the last man standing, right? So it got to a point this client could have afforded this property. But one of the things that we do is price it. And I encourage every buyer before they start negotiation to do their pricing research, because this underpins our decisions around how far we push ourselves. It's not because the market's going up. Not because of FOMO, not because they can't afford it, but it eats what is this property really worth? What differential, how far are you prepared to push yourself over the recent recent sales? You know, that there's all these questions, right?

Veronica Morgan: So in this particular case, the property was a very nice property in many regards, but it had two major limitations and they knew that. And I said, it got to a point where I was really uncomfortable with him pushing further, even though I knew they could and they probably wanted to. And I just said, I really need to step in to say urge caution at this point. I really, I'm very nervous that you pay more than this now on this property. And they backed out. And that very days later, a new ones comes on the market, which they subsequently bought. That is a way better property for them. And they ended up spending another 50,000. But to my mind, it's worth it a lot more than that extra 50. And that was a different process. Although once again, the agent was had decided, okay, I'm going to start this process.

Veronica Morgan: We're not going to wait to auction. It was a slightly different process, but we also had the same competitive. It was wrapping up. And in that particular case, it actually went over. What that client had said to me was they walk away price, but I went back to them. I said, I, to redirect you to our pricing research on this property, it stacked up. If you push yourself further, it still stacks up. You're not going into FOMO territory here. It's much more considered to push yourself over that walk away price. And then they sort of revisited and sat down. And we were able to buy enough time, I guess, in the negotiation for them to think that through. But it was supported by evidence. It wasn't just, oh, I've got to give up. I've just got to throw everything at it. You know? And so I was delighted that they got that and way more delighted than I would have been if they bought the first one. And

Chris Bates: I think this is, I mean, I have noticed over the years with, you know, we have talked about the buyer's agent pitch later on, but I've also seen this for buyer's agents that it's just, we'll just buy it, you know, buy that first property the day. There's definitely conflicts in buyer's agency, world. And one of those is that you can only have certain buyers at certain price points and, you know, cause you create problems. And you know, if you get a client off your books, it opens up a hole that you can feel someone else with them, especially buys it a potentially taking some time at home. Buying is not easy, it's highly emotional. And so you gotta really careful sort of, you know, also sometimes realize that you might not the buyer's agent who's working with your best interests sometimes there, because what you did was right.

Chris Bates: You, even though, you know, they potentially would have done it. He called the jets and got on to a much better property at a much better price, you know, value for money wise. So, you know, this sort of issue though, is where let's say some areas are super competitive and I've got 10 good agents that are all selling a handful, maybe one sale, a lot more, but some areas are not like that. You know? And if, for example, you have made offers that are more than what you're offering on this property. They know you've got the budget for how do you sort of make sure that they don't just get everything you've got out of them because agents are very good at sort of knowing when they can't tap that button anymore.

Veronica Morgan: It's look, that's a very good point. And it is difficult to negotiate when you are negotiating with somebody who's a lot more skilled than you are and has a bit more information about you than you do about them and the vendor situation. So I did it recently on a property where this is an off-market property, and I know that this particular buyer knew my client's budget and it, we bought it a fair whack, listen, their upper budget and the negotiation process at the start with, you know, I went in with less than what the, it was an off-market and there was like an asking price. And I went in with less than what they're asking, but I, I fed back the agent, the agent's own comparables and said, each of these comparables, you you're using are bigger and better renovated. And what I didn't add in which was actually the truth is that they were all a couple months old.

Veronica Morgan: And honestly, if you factored them up according to growth, then they would definitely very, they would have been over what we paid. Right. But, and agents aren't doing that. They sort of, you know, it's sort of funny anyway, but I did go back with those and he went off and he came back with another set of comps that, you know, to notch the price up again. And you know, I'm like, oh God, here we go. And look, the reality is that the asking price wasn't actually that, that far out of the park, but I just thought, look, if we don't have to pay out, we shouldn't. Right. But once again, I'd done the pricing research before I started negotiating. So if push came to shove and that owner would not budge, I'd already had that conversation with the client. Okay. If this is the case, this is a seller's market.

Veronica Morgan: This is a good property. It does stack up at the asking price. It's not bad value. You know, like it's obviously better value at less, but it's not bad value. So I would say to you, you need to be thinking, are we prepared to pay that price if push comes to shove? Right? And so that was the sort of conversation I had with them. So they were thinking about that whilst I was doing the negotiating, then there was a couple little things that I did start digging my heels in. There were like things like it was an investment property and they want to pass a Lantech seal. It just went off to my clients who were owner occupies. And I was like, that just sorta sucks really. I mean, there's a few grand in that, but they also, it was tenanted. It wasn't presented that.

Veronica Morgan: Well, they would've had to do quite a bit of work to it to actually bring it up to scratch in order to put it on the market properly. These are all things that my client would need to do that you know, that the owner doesn't need to do. And also that the owner gets a tax deduction or any of that money that they spend. Right. So I, my final offer was where I preempted the final offer by going in and saying, you know what? They aren't prepared to pay the asking price. And these are the sticking points. So I sort of cost it out what the building inspector said, et cetera, et cetera. And I just sort of went back and I didn't tell them what the offer was going to be. And then when I went in with the offer, it was still less than the asking price, but I think it was more what was more, it was more than if they'd added up all the things that I put in this email, then they would have been expecting from us.

Veronica Morgan: So it felt better. And that was a tactic I use in that instance. So I don't use that all the time. And there's very few opportunities to use any of that tactic in this market because, you know, normally we're not the only buyer on a property, but so that was just a process that we went through in that particular instance. So you got to understand a value before you start any of this. And then you've got to understand the circumstances and you've got to understand the agent and how they want to work. And once you've got all that together, you can actually start to put together a reasonable negotiation strategy. We

Chris Bates: Did an episode very early on in podcasts and we, it was a BATNA and it was all about having an alternative, you know, in your mind, something that you're willing to sort of combat this falls over, or it goes to a certain price. You're okay with that. And because you've got an alternative, I think that was a really great episode where we basically, before you start this negotiation, yes, you've a certain price. Then we've also got some type of property that you may be interested in or, you know, something to sort of, you know, switch your attention to. And I think that's a really sort of powerful sort of thing when you get to sort of that stage of a price that you're not comfortable with. One final thing, I guess on the negotiation, let's say, you'd go to auction. It has to go to auction. You don't win the auction and it's passed in because it hasn't hit reserve or some reason that you're the top bidder. How do you sort of change a negotiation strategy here? You know, how do you sort of get that deal? Or do you just say, we'll talk about it next week. I mean, how do you sort of best play that

Veronica Morgan: Once again, different states have different legislation in terms of after an auction, how long you can still buy under auction conditions. And so in Victoria, for instance, it's three days, either, either side of an auction in new south Wales, it's up to midnight and the day of auction. So that is something that's in favor of the buyer to sort of say, look, I can buy unconditionally today or, you know, within this period of time. Whereas if it ticks over that, then you're back out sort of with buyers making conditional offers. So it's, it's a plus for the buyer as well to, to, to be able to secure it. But so understanding the legislation is first thing. So I think, okay, well, this is where I've got strength and you know, you'll get agents saying, oh, I've got a buyer. And you know, they just couldn't get their finance sorted out for today, but they're pretty confident they're going to be here on Monday and all the terms, you know, they needed to, to, you know, get some extra money from family.

Veronica Morgan: Weren't able to be here at the auction. There's always sort of dialogue that the agents will use to make you think there really is someone else there. And sometimes there is someone else there. But the reality is that if you're the highest bidder at an auction, you are in the box seat. And despite all the bluff and bravado that goes on about other buyers, it's like, look, I'm here. I'm, you know, I've got a pulse, I've got a check book, you know, I'm your buyer. So let's, let's do a deal. You know, let's work a deal out. Now at some times, agents can't do a deal because the vendor is out of control on price. And so you need to understand what that is. So you can ask things like, well, what is the reserve? You know, and, and look, they're going to try and get you over the reserve price, of course, but it's like, well, I'm not prepared to pay that.

Veronica Morgan: I've already given you my top offer. Sometimes you can dig your heels in. It depends on how competitive it was, if it was really competitive. And you know that everyone pushed themselves and you are the last person standing and you paid, you work finding all these other people and there's no more dollars from those other people. Then you can dig your heels in and you can say, do you know what I saw that you saw that if you let me go, I probably won't be prepared to pay as much money on Monday. And I tell you what those other buyers, weren't prepared to pay as much money today. So you want to run that risk, knock yourself out. So that, that is very valid in a highly competitive auction. In one that's not so competitive, there's lots of reasons why it might not have been competitive.

Veronica Morgan: And it might be that they over quoted. It might be who knows, but if there's a valid case to a bit more than what you've offered, what your highest bid is. And once again, it comes back to knowing values, right? If there's a valid case of paying a little bit more than that, then you know, it's worthwhile continuing to negotiate. And what a lot of people get hung up on here, they say, oh, I don't want to bid against myself. And it's like, you actually not at this point in time, you're negotiating. And that's the difference. And so I will always go back to that foundation of understanding what a property is worth and use that as your base and I'll pop in, I'll pop a bunch of links in the show notes. Actually one is for the little free course we've got at home by our academy, because it does teach you that process of going through and actually starting to build up your knowledge of sales and of sale prices so that you can actually have much more confidence when you're at that point, because some buyers walk away when they shouldn't and others continuing negotiating when they shouldn't, you know, I guess

Chris Bates: That's the thing with negotiation. Like I think if you're selling a property, people are very competitive and human natures. They want to be winners. And you know, sometimes, you know, people act irrationally because they always want to win things rather than focus on the result. They want to win right. Sellers and buyers. Right. So, you know, I think ultimately the thing you want to win on is the quality of the asset. You know, not so much the price, you know, I always say you want to be happy with the property. You may not be a hundred percent happy with the price, but you're not like really gutted how much you spent, but you know, you might feel a little bit uncomfortable cause you might've stretched a little bit further than you really wanted to. And you know, but ultimately when you sleep at night, when you, you know, in the property, you know, you bought a great asset.

Chris Bates: And I think so sometimes the negotiation is, yeah, you're winning on the right thing, I guess. But you also want to know there's a certain price point where you, you know, really upset and you've got it and you know, you can't afford it, et cetera. So I mean, sometimes it's focusing on the right thing in the negotiation. So I was going to put a bit of a pitch at the end and why you need a buyer's agent, but I want to focus a little bit pointless little, cause it probably was a lots of value that people got where, you know, things and you can do things, but there was a few things that we didn't cover on and maybe it's that local relationship and the Intel you get from that local relationship. What are some of the other things where the buyer's agent's always going to have the upper hand on, you know, the average punter? Well,

Veronica Morgan: I guess there's, there's what to do. So you make that offer them what you know, so a buyer's agent, if they're experienced, and this is a bit of a, one of my bugbears is that for many years, it's been very easy to get a buyer's agent license. So an experienced buyers' agent is going to know what to do next. So very rarely is your opening offer accepted. You are going to get a response to something, right? You might get no response and in a pre-auction offer, sometimes that's what happens. You get nothing, no, sorry. The agent, the owner doesn't want to sell it prior to auction. Doesn't want to sell at that price. Doesn't wanna sell prior to auction. So if you're not getting a counter offer, you are miles off and it might be that the vendor completely unrealistic on price, or it might be that your offer is just ridiculously low.

Veronica Morgan: You know? So a buyer's agent is going to know what to do next. You know, most buyers that often that is when someone comes to us, they've got, I made this offer and then I had nothing. I'm like, well, give me the background. Okay, well, I can tell you why you had nothing. You know, we just know it. We didn't know. It's a language that we know we're very, very familiar with. And then if you do get a counter offers, then what does that mean? You know? And quite often when agents come to us and try to fish for an offer and you know, they'll, they'll be saying, oh, you've got someone coming in with an offer of X and I'm like, has the vendor accepted it? Did they give a counter offer? You know, it's like you ask these questions. Most people aren't thinking about that.

Veronica Morgan: They go, oh, all right, well I better, I better get involved. You know? So it's, it's that insight into what's really happening. It's like the, and I mentioned about the method, you know, how to deal with the method. What do you do in a best and final offer versus what do you do when they're shopping at around? You know, when do you have to get involved versus you're hanging on the sidelines? You know, all of that stuff. The other thing too is about making pre-auction offers. People make pre-auction offers because they're fearful of auctions. And as I mentioned earlier, I think production scenario is often more something to be more scared of. But, but so therefore they don't, they make it for the wrong reasons. They're not tactical. They don't do it in a way that actually is gonna have more chances of success. So it's all of that sort of, rather than knee jerking and being reactive to everything, a good buyer's agent is going to be very much about guiding you through this process, even though it's a sellers market, your advantage is your insights into what's really going on and your guidance as to, is it a good enough property to push yourself on or not?

Veronica Morgan: You know, where does that pricing sit has all the due diligence been done, the confidence that you have moving forward versus somebody who's just panicking and might pay more than you and you might miss out. And that's okay because they've just gone and done a crazy thing that you wouldn't do. You know? So it's, that's the, you know, but I have to caveat it and I'm more and more alarmed as, as I go as well, because a lot of buyer's agents haven't really mastered a lot. Oh,

Chris Bates: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, we've seen that. We've just had clients been recently butchered. I would call it from inexperienced buyers agents and they self-selected it through friends, you know, wife, the person you have to going to give them a go, you know, raised all my concerns around, you know, their experience. And this is a big move for you in your life. Do you want to entrust it with someone? Maybe you should pay a similar price and use someone who's been doing a lot longer, still went ahead and won. They had to come to me about the negotiation and I'm like, this is not me. You paid a buyer's agent, what are they doing? And they ended that Y may still haven't bought, but they snatched the buyer's agent, which was a good result in my mind because I realized they didn't know what they were doing.

Chris Bates: The second one Dubai with the buyer's agent, but they missed out on the property that they wanted to buy. And arguably, they've got us probably just as good and they're just as happy, but I don't know if that's just themselves convincing themselves that, but the buyer's agent absolutely butchered that deal and off the agent and the agent didn't want to work with that. Buyer's agent tried all of these tactics rights and it got really messy. And ultimately I think what happened there is the buyer's agent came in and tried to, you know, I'm the king here. We made Mae and the agent said, hang on a sec, this is the property. I don't need you and off the agent and the agent didn't want to sell it. And agents do do that because agent said driven very much. You know, I think they're the Kings and Queens.

Chris Bates: So yeah, you've gotta be so careful around the buyer's agents and yeah, they can do sometimes more harm than good if they don't know what they're doing. So the big thing for me, I think it is that sounding board. It is that person to sort of independent. They're not as emotional as you and can sort of say, look, you know, you're going too far. Like he didn't step in or, you know, do you really love that property that much? I think, you know, that one's better suited to you and falling in love with the view, not with the actual realistic lifestyle of being in that property. So lots of things, a buyer's agent can add value that are intangibles until you go through the process. So hopefully that was great for the listeners. And thanks for answering my questions, Veronica

Veronica Morgan: And well, the other thing I'll pop in the show notes is that a link for that negotiation episode that we recorded way back in the early days that we were with Fiona mental blank on surname, but she's actually a negotiation specialist and not a property specialist, but a negotiation specialist. So that's a really good episode, actually, please join us for our next episode. We're going to do a deep dive into the

Veronica Morgan: Fire movement in Australia. What is this? You were asking financial independence retire early. Sounds ideal. Doesn't it? Well join us and find out what it's all about and you know how some people are actually planning on retiring even in their thirties. Is it a pipe dream or is it possible if you're looking to buy your dream home or an investment property in Sydney's inner west Eastern suburbs or north shore, my team, and I can help you by without regrets, reach out via my website. Good deeds.com.edu. If you're

Chris BatesJune 21, 2021

Episodes

Episode 181 | How to successfully negotiate | Veronica Morgan, Good Deeds