Property Now Real Estate Portal

Houses for Rent

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:43:19 +0000

If you are a landlord and you need help in finding a tenant for your investment property, then we can place your rental property on domain for just $110 a month.

We're also building a rental search and rental signups into our site within the next week or so, but in the meantime, if you would like to place your rental property on the portals just email us here sales@propertynow.com.au or phone us to discuss how it works on 02 6651 5004

If you're looking for a place to rent just search your suburb using the dropdown menus in the search box at the very top of our front page here - property rentals

Optional Selling Tools

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 04:34:30 +0000

As a further service to it's customers ( private house sellers )we have added some fantastic optional ancillary selling tools.

The first of these is AgentAudio.

Agentaudio brings you a great new way to promote your property portfolio.

Agent Audio is a slick, cost effective and professional alternative to the slow real estate virtual tour.

It's a TV style advert, with professional voice-overs that guide buyers around your property.

Your Professional Voice over can mention a wealth of features about the property and your services.

Promote your property with agentaudio tour for a once only investment of just $125

To see what the service does for your property click the following link to see what one of these tours actually looks like in action on Domain - real estate virtual tour

If you want your property featured in this manner just phone PropertyNow with your request on 02 6651 5004

If you are already a customer of PropertyNow then chances are we have the photos for your property already and can use those as well as some new text or text from your existing PropertyNow ad.

If you're a new customer we can just bundle this optionla virtual tour with your purchase , so just give us a call to request that.

Your Number 1 Source for Financial Commentary

Fri, 01 May 2009 12:43:05 +0000

You've reached our Finance section which includes a variety of tools, calculators and information.

How NOT to sell a home

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:39:15 +0000

Our promise to you. If you closely follow all the suggestions made below accurately and conscientiously then you have our guarantee, that your home will remain in your possession.

Overprice your property. This one is self explanatory but let’s give you some clarity. What you need to do specifically is get 3 real estate agents appraisals. Select the highest one of the 3 and then inflate that by a further 10% because your home is much better.
Limit your marketing. On no account have a signboard. Such a tacky and unsightly object has no place on the front lawn of your masterpiece. If you must erect one then a piece of cardboard or a sliced off cut section from an abandoned real estate agent sign should suffice.
List with 5 real estate agents so that you get 5 times the marketing exposure.
Limit the ability for people to view the property. We suggest allowing inspections just once a week on a Sunday between 9am and 10 am, so that it clashes with religious services. If you are involved in the inspections yourself, i.e. as an fsbo seller, then those times may be difficult for you to keep also. In that case try to fix a time that conflicts with the timing of a local sporting event. etc.
Select the most arrogant and aggressive agent(s) you can find. Such an agent won’t molly coddle buyers who want to bring you an offer that’s lower than your own expectation.
At all times limit the marketing exposure. List with an agent whose website was built in the 90’s or if selling privately list with a classic private selling company who rank strongly in Google for private sales. That way almost no buyers will find your property.
Sell when the market bottoms and at a price that wasn’t achievable during the bull market 2 years earlier.
Say no to all offers and be very clear with your agent that you ” don’t need to sell ” and you “are happy to just wait for the right person who’ll pay what you want “
Screw your agent down hard on commission. Make it so low that she is forced to sell your home at cost or even a loss to his business. After all she’s driving a Mercedes so she’s fair game.
Don’t bother with presentation. Stick to your guns on this one and under no circumstances let the fact that you are selling your largest asset change how you keep your property. It’s your house and there’s no need to change how you live just for an inspection

I’m supremely confident that if you stick closely to all these golden rules, you’ll have the peace of mind that comes with staying in your property. No removalists, no changing services over. No headaches over what to do with your profits etc.
If you do all the above and someone still wants to purchase your home, then your only option is to further increase the price because your home is in such high demand.

Of course if you are one of those people who harbour a genuine desire to actually sell your home then you can always contact this site – sell my house or discuss things at our real estate blog.

Introduction & Argument for Private Selling

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 05:59:13 +0000

I want to write the definitive private sale article. The object is to provide some clarity to people who are perhaps toying with the idea of selling their own home. Let me state categorically and from the outset, that this article is completely and unashamedly biased in its viewpoint. Now that we’ve cleared the air on that, away we go.

During this article I will be using the phrases, private seller and fsbo to describe the same event. A private seller in this context is someone who is selling their own home with little or no real estate agent assistance. FSBO refers to exactly the same thing and is the phrase more commonly used in the United States to describe a “no agent “sale.

I guess the most obvious question and the one that’s most often posed by a private seller is – “Can I do this by myself? “ Well it’s self evident that you can, so perhaps the better question would be “ Can I do as good a job of selling my own property, as an agent would do? “

Even when we break that question down still further, what is really being asked is this – ‘can I perform as well as a real estate agent?’ and... ‘will I save money overall?’ The first question is very subjective. After all how well do agents perform? And while you’re wrestling with that one ‘how tall is the sky?’ Are they measured only on performance in a monetary sense? i.e. how much money you end up with after they negotiate and take a commission.

Or is their performance partly measured by how easy and/or how fast the sales process is?
Whichever way these things are measured there can never be a definitive answer, as there are great agents, as well as lousy agents. There are easy home to sell as well as difficult homes to sell.

Ok so what have we learned thus far? First, that both real estate agent sales and private sales are a subjective experience and second that every situation is unique. For example you are more apt to require the services of an agent if your property for sale is 100 miles from your home and you have no other ability to arrange inspections from a distance. But for the sake of this exploration of FSBO selling let’s assume you have the time and ability to show the property for sale at least one day per week.

Now the question becomes somewhat simpler. Beyond your own personal preference and your own belief system, it now becomes a question of whether you can achieve the same marketing exposure as the agent. That’s because, assuming you are reaching at least as many buyers as the real estate agents, then you will have negotiating money up your sleeve via the substantial commission savings. That’s provided of course that the marketing cost isn’t excessively high for you to achieve that same level of exposure as the agents.

So we might surmise that so long as you have the time, the desire and the marketing clout needed, then private selling is absolutely a better way to go.The agent will disagree vehemently.

The agent will insist that you’ll save commission but lose money through your lack of negotiation skills.
That of course is just about the flimsiest argument imaginable. There is to my knowledge, not one single study that ever has or ever could draw such a conclusion.

It’s an agent’s argument that can’t be proven and so is an easy claim to make. Given that it can’t be proven we may apply either logic or empirical evidence.

Logically agents should be better negotiators because they have more experience right? Well, by the same logic my dog should now be able to read as I have been trying to teach her for the past 10 years. Experience does not always equate to greater skill. Remember agents have the decided disadvantage (in a negotiation over a house sale) that they have to earn enough to cover the commission. Otherwise there is no point, is there?

Well, for some of us there is a point. Some of us just don’t want the hassle of dealing with a buyer. Ah but here’s the catch. As a seller you have 2 choices. You can sell privately and deal with the buyer or you can sell with an agent and deal with the agent! Either way you cannot escape the negotiation process, the inspection process or the sales process. Essentially you just divert the stress from one area to another.

So now a quick review, private sales are as easy or as hard as agent sales. Private sales may or may not save you money. Private selling need not be hard and real estate agent selling need not be easy.

Have I lost you yet? Stick with me because all that I’m saying is that on the law of averages you will save a lot of money, all things being equal, by private selling your house. For an agent to draw level they have to, by definition, get you $10,000 more than you can get by yourself (on average)

But here’s the big caveat. Private selling must still be approached professionally. When you sell your own house you are competing with every other house that’s similar in price, locality and features, to your own. That means to compete against other homes you are competing against the agents and even against other private fsbo’s. (For sale by owners)

And all that means is that you must have the same or better resources at your disposal, as the agents. In a nutshell that means you must have very, very good exposure. You should have a quality sign and you should have quality internet coverage.

If you have that aspect covered, then yes, private sale is definitely a great way to go. Don’t get me wrong. You may still encounter significant issues but my point is that most issues will occur in either form of sale. Issues seldom relate to whether it’s an fsbo sale or a real estate agent sale. Issues arise from individual personalities and individual situations.

Let me give you an example. You’re selling with an agent and the agent accepts a conditional offer subject to a finance clause. The buyer misses getting their finance and they withdraw. Is that the fault of the agent? Not at all, now what if you’re a private seller and someone comes through your house and lifts a piece of jewellery? Is that because you are selling privately? Of course not, and the same would have occurred with an agent sale. What if you are selling privately and the property refuses to sell for 12 months. Is Private sale the problem? No! Is price the problem? Yes!

This begs the question. Can agents price a property better than you can? I can only report what I know from a decade of working with agents and that is that they make massive blunders on price often and so do some private sellers.

So I hope a clear pattern has emerged. Private sale is as hard or as easy as you and the market make it. On balance it’s my strongly held belief that the average home seller will do a better job than the average agent, not because the agent is incompetent but simply because an owner’s knowledge of the property is superior, their motivation is greater and the commission is non existent.

Pricing your Home

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:05:20 +0000

If you are are going to sell your own property then one of the most important things to get right is the pricing. Many agents get this wrong but you don't have to. We'll market your Australian Property to the masses and all you need to do is get the price right.

It's a simple matter of researching your market and can be done in a single day by using the property portals in conjunction with a drive around your local area and a notebook.

Check comparable local real estate in your area using the internet sites like domain...as well as your local newspaper or real estate magazine.

You can also use a service such as Residex to research your price. As a private seller you can access two key databases of sold properties that Australian real estate agents and other professionals use.

It's very important to garner information about SOLD property prices, not merely the "For Sale" or listing prices. The selling price is often well below the listed price that you saw in a newspaper or online and it could give you a very false impression of your properties value.

Pricing your home correctly is absolutely critical. It's also critical to market your property to both local and national home buyers.

Types of Agency Agreements

Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:36:08 +0000

There are several types of agency agreements and they all set out the terms of the agreement between yourself (the Vendor) and the agent. The Department of Fair Trading within your state has up to date definitions of each agency and explanations of each.

All agencies will boil down to either exclusive,open or auction and in any case an Auction agreement implies an exclusive agreement ( could also be joint exclusive )

Exclusive Agreements mean that you can still sell your own home but if you do you will do so under pain of commission...in other words the agent will still have cause to still claim his commission. An exclusive agency gives selling rights to one agent for a period of time ( often 3 months )

A Joint Exclusive Agreement is similar but the selling rights are granted to several agencies with a written agreement to either share commissions, or on a winner take all basis, between the chosen agencies. Joint exclusive agencies are most commonly between a buyer and two real estate agencies.

An Open Agency Agreement allow a seller to enlist a number of agencies to sell a property on a winner take all basis.

A Sole Agency Agreement provides the owner with the right/option to sell the property themselves.

For a frank discussion about all possible agency agreements phone or email us and we'll try to give you some perspective on the issue of agency agreements.

Optional Seller Features

Administrator Administrator — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 05:23:00 +0000