REAL Sale Price

[Guest Adele]

Thought it might be useful for those of you heading out here to know that real estate works a little differently over here. If you are browsing realestate.com for houses and ideas of price please bear this in mind:

 

When a house is advertised as 'offer over $360,000' or '$360+' you need to add 10% to the price. Pretty much all the agents we have spoken to work on a +10% basis. Obviously in the UK you go in low and work up to the asking price, so it is pretty different and does alter the ACTUAL price you can buy the properties for.

 

Hope this is helpful to someone!

[richjop]

Have posted something like this before but worth saying again. The housing market is very different to UK, an offers over price is really an indication. Talk to the agent about the position of the seller, and offer accordingly. The offers are all made on the same day to the seller so you have to go in with your best and final offer, the agent is not allowed to tell you what the other offers are and there is none of this going backwards and forwards-this could mean that your offer is way over what everyone else has put in so only offer what you think its worth. Bear in mind that surveys are not part of the process, you can have one if you want but your offer is not subject to them, termite surveys are always recommended but not so much for structural surveys. (I was told the other day if you find a house in the suburbs without cracks be wary because the land shifts so much around here that cracks are pretty much the norm.) Put all your conditions in with the offer and then wait and see, deposit of 10% ish is then due within 48 hours normally. Also remember all the extra costs, we paid 850 for our house and the stamp duty and conveyancing added another 50 to that!!! Then again, you could always go through the stress of an auction, if you do, have a limit set because things get pretty hectic!!!! Having said this, we found the process extremely simple and we were in within 30 days of offer being accepted including waiting for FIRB approval.

[Guest ultraviolet]

thanks alot, some good advice there. I've been looking at property and wondered about the 'offer over', now I know

[Angela]

The stamp duty is the thing to remember here, there are plenty of free calculator links, if you are looking at $380k+ you are adding around $15k approx maybe a bit more, check it out as is soon adds up.

 

Also the building inspection, if you have one, most real estate agents are now advising that you instruct them during the cooling off period, this is due to all sorts of legal issues that can occur & the ones we have spoken to recommend if you are having one to sort it out during that period. We have just paid $330 including GST, the report arrives tomorrow, but I have to say he was very thorough & very helpful in his findings - we got the vendors to add a new oven as the catch was broken, something we would have definitely missed had we not had an inspection !

 

Hope this helps.

Angela

 

PS some of the prices are way higher than the properties are worth IMO, be careful not to be pushed into paying more for a property / in a suburb, check median prices & % rented out to give you an indication of how much to 'really' pay for the property - its not easy !