Thank you so much FG! This is exactly what I had in mind when I made this thread. Long post but everything in it is helpful.
1 Like
I don’t think this is necessarily true, my mate just had his offer (right on the lower limit of advertised range) accepted.
Depends on all sorts of things: whether the advertised range is realistic, how long it’s been on the market, whether there’s firm interest.
Generally you’ll find when you put in a firm offer, the agent will come back to you and give you a chance to match/beat.
My advice is to select a handful of suburbs you’re interested in and find yourself a buyers advocate that specialises in that area. We did it for our move to Geelong from Melbourne, mainly because with a young child, we couldn’t go house hunting. However it was the best decision we made and would use one on our next purchase (if there is to be another).
The thousands of dollars it cost for his service, was saved many times over. Our particular advocate was a former real estate agent so had plenty of contacts. He was able to source homes before they were hitting the market, was able to educate us on the suburbs, the true values of properties, advice us when to make an offer before auction and when to take our chances at an auction. What he also did was open our eyes to the realities of the market, remove any unrealistic expectations and have us focused on exactly what we required.
Finally he bid for our home at auction, something he did aggressively and under our reserve. He intimidated the others bidders out of the running, something I or my wife couldn’t do. The bloke even popped in a few weeks after our move with a bottle of champaign and chocolates.
You’ll get plenty of people saying, don’t waste your money, you can do it yourself, but you’re dropping 600k down in one hit. A couple of grand is nothing in the scheme of things.
3 Likes
Back when I was looking for my one bedroom flat, I found the rule was “take the middle of the quoted range and add 10%”.
Sale prices are available online on Sundays.
2 Likes
If you’re gonna renovate, make sure you check what’s asbestos and what’s not. An audit costs fark all, and removal by professional isn’t too pricey either.
If I were starting again, I’d probably consider geelong or somewhere that gives you weekend options.
Not for From the beach. Commute a couple days a week, work From home if you can. Some nice areas, and some really sketchy ones too if you’re that way inclined. Have no idea what the price is these days.
Also, Ames THT keeps banging on about buying an investment property in Rosebud. There’s still cheap places there, and I don’t know if the train goes that far, but it could be worth a look.
1 Like
Simple, with your $600k move to Launceston down here in Tas and buy a large 4 bed house on 1000sq m of land within 10 mins of the city and use your 150k left over to spend on yourself
8 Likes
I’ve got a 2br dump in Geelong West on 260m2 that you can have for $600k. Blitz discount.
4 Likes
The tragic thing is, your outrageous comment isn’t even that far off being a reality…
It’s pretty frustrating. I sold a place in Newtown here in Geelong 4 years ago for $600k. It just sold again for $920k! What the hell??? It’s ■■■■■■ Geelong!
I feel for anyone trying to start off. I guess that’s how Bomber made a fortune out of Armstrong Creek. It is pretty affordable compared to a lot of places.
Good luck.
1 Like
Narre Warren ? Definitely the wrong side of the Yarra.
Now here in Bacchus Marsh, you can get some great homes for under S600,000.
35 minutes by train to Etihad, 10 minutes more to the G. And lots of Bomber Supporters. Happy to give you a tour !
2 Likes
There are reverse real estate agents. You tell them what you’re looking they do the research (based on your parameters + quality of building up to scratch etc…), present twenty or so short list, go visit five or six together etc… It’s like your own version of that TV show.
35 minutes! I don’t think so.
1 Like
Both my kids have bought a house in the last year - one 2nd owner, the other just finished building. Both came in at around your budget, and both are very nice houses, if you like that sort of thing - modern looking things - 4 bed/2 bath, tiny garden. One is in Diggers Rest, the other in Sunbury. I’ve been up that way a lot since then, and I gotta say, the main strip in Sunbury is nice, with cafes and restaurants etc.
Anyway, I’m rambling - I think they did alright.
3 Likes
Wait until its electrified. say hello to 2 hours…
diggers rest is 90% hole though. ■■■■ i hate that place.
When I was looking (10-12 km from Brisbane CBD) a few years ago, 95% of properties were advertised as “offers over XX” (very few auctions). Went to a bunch of open houses and arranged inspections with just the agent, and anything we really liked turned out to be already under contract (but not advertised as such). Got really ■■■■■■ off with agents for wasting our time. An ad came up in one of our searches stating a fixed price that we could afford, with an open house in a couple of days time. At that stage we’d learned that we had to be first through the door if the place was any good, so we pressed the agent to get us in there before everyone else. Agent said that if we offered the asking price then the owners were obliged to accept, which they did. From what we’d seen around the area, they probably could have got 5-10% more for it, but we wouldn’t have paid it as it at our absolute max…
Don’t know if the “offers over” thing is common in Vic, but it is here and it sucks. Effectively becomes a drawn out auction.
2 Likes
I can’t reinforce this part enough. One thing I did was have a cheat sheet I had with me at the auction. Given it’s a highly stressful time, I had my limit and a few reminder tips typed out on largish font on an A4 piece of paper which i kept out of site (hide it between your brochures - you’ll have brochures coming out of your wazoo).
I actually had two limits, the higher being the limit that my wife and I had already agreed to - if the the auction has slowed down enough and we were near our first limit, we could have a quick glance at each other and know yep, let’s go for it.
Yes, have a limit, but also be mindful if you miss out, it could be another 3 months and prices will go up in that time.
Come back with counter bids immediately. It makes the other bidders think you have bottomless pockets.
Watch the other bidders and who they are with. I could see a couple mouth to each other “$5000 more” so I knew their limit. My next bid went straight to that and I knocked them out. They left in tears and I was really upset by it (it gave me the shakes after the auction) but I schooled my face and gave nothing away at the time.
2 Likes
Just on this, can anyone recommend for the eastern suburbs ? I want to get my place checked out. I have cement board in the wet areas and have a sneaking suspicion it contains asbestos.
I’m just waiting for the FHOG to catch up to property prices…I reckon I need it to be about $150k.
1 Like
V-line with real trains !