Brisbane buyer's agent - Scott McGeever

[Iggy_Type_R]

Originally posted by Bear924
Iggy,

I'd imagine that if someone was in a position to be able to purchase a 20 unit block of units they would have enough knowledge not to need a buyers agent.

If they didn't have that knowledge... only the money I'd suggest they spend some of the $$$ for the info...... regardless of how good a buyers agent was I wouldn't like to say "Here is $XXXXXX, go and buy me a 20 unit block of units" without doing a large degree of due dilegence.

I'd like to disagree with oyu there Bear. You do not need that much money to buy a block fo 20+ units. All you need is a bit of creative thinking and ability to network.

But then again, buying 20+ apartments is waaaay outside most people's comfort zone.

Scott: the funny thing is that I have found a few people who specialise in such properties in NZ, but not a single one as yet in Australia.

 

[buyerforhire]

Not so amazing that you can not find a person, I would think there would be a high risk level in advising on such purchases. I could see you would be looking at purchasing property like this for a few reasons....

1. The return is so good it turns out to be self funding

and/or

2. The block has the potential to be subdivided/strata titled and sold off for short term gain.

The later would seem the most appropriate as the public liability insurance may be high for 20+ units.

Scott.

 

[strangep]

Hi Scott

Nice to see you on the forum mate....hopefully it will be a long and prosperous relationship for all of us

Sorry if I've missed something really simple (the jet lag may have kicked in ) but I was wondering if you may be able to explain the meaning of the following quote from your first post...

We were hoping for a long settlement but the vendor wanted out and wanted it done in 30 days, when it all boiled down the price we were paying for it far outweighed the money that would be captured on a longer settlement, so we went with it.

How is money captured over a longer settlement?? Is it due to the real value of the property rising over the settlement period??

Any insight you could give would be greatly appreciated and would help to provide further insight into my own situation.

Thanks for your help.

Paul

 

[Mrs Bird]

Hi Scott, firstly thankyou for answering all our questions.

Can you find certain highly desirable property before it goes onto the market? I will give you an example:

There is a beautiful little beach 15min from Cairns, totally undiscovered and no development at all. All beachfront houses are little seaside cottages owned by artists, fisherman, and elderly people. Prospective buyer lives interstate, desperate to buy a beachfront property at a reasonable price but these properties are almost bought the day they hit the market.

Can a buyers agent help in this case? Do you actually resort to 'knocking on doors' and asking if people want to sell? Or do you have to go through an agent?

Thank you Mrs Bird

 

[buyerforhire]

Paul,

Good to see you have arrived back in the UK, safely I presume.

What I meant by the comment is that a longer settlement would have allowed the buyer to either keep his money in the bank earning interest, or not have to pay interest on a mortgage over that longer settlement period thus saving them money. As well as saving money the longer settlement also provides for potential capital growth to occurr thus giving you a greater equity holding in the property.

As it turned out the money that would have been saved in interest over the longer settlement period was far outweighed by the amount the property was bought for under market value. This meant it just made sense to accept the vendors terms and move forward with the purchase.

Scott.

 

[buyerforhire]

Mrs Bird,

A buyer's agent can certainly assist you with your search. They should source properties anyway they can, whether it is through an agent or direct to the vendor. Most vendors are willing to listen to a buyer's agent as they will have a genuine client and will not want a commission from the seller.

Unfortunately we do not operate in the Cairns area as yet, we have not found anyone suitable to do the work for us. If you would like to call me and have a chat please feel free.

Scott.

www.propertyresearch.com.au

 

[Hunter]

Scott,

One of your method of calculating fees is percentage of purchase price, which means you get paid less when you bargain harder for the buyer. It doesn't seem to make sense...
Hunter

 

[Rolf Latham]

Hi Hunter

Like many things where money is involved there are ALWAYS issues of ethics.

I dont know Scott from a bar of soap; I do however know that businesses like mine and Scott's thrive on referrals and repeat business.

It is therefore unlikely that a person working on this basis would start a business relationship with a client to deliberately defraud to make a few extra bucks on the one transaction . Why ? because the one transaction done to the delight of the one client will lead to an "infinite" number of more clients.

Why would one chase 10 % more comm/fees when one can have 1000 %+ more.


Ta

rolf

 

[Waverlybay]

Hi Scott

What is that gold coast property that you organise to purchase for $625k now worth? I would imagine that the vendor would have seen some more cap growth since april 2003?

cheers
wb

 

[buyerforhire]

Could not have said it better myself Rolf. Hunter we have set our fees to what we beleive we are worth and we do not negotiate on them in the first instance. Rolf is right in what he says the best business comes from referrals, we work a lot on those. The reason we give people a choice to pay fixed or percentage is we were getting people that felt uncomfortable paying a percentage, we no longer get those questions.

We do however offer repeat clients a reduced rate if they use our service within a specified time frame i.e. within 9 months.

With regard to your query 'waverlybay' you have good timing as I just spoke with that client last week and he sent us a testimonial stating that he had just had the place revalued, for $700,000, just on two months after it had settled, needless to say he was over the moon. I will post the testimonial on our web site soon.

Regards,
Scott.

 

[FrankGrimes]

Scott,

I am very interested in your services as i've been priced out of the Sydney/Wollongong market and I don't have the time or experience to look interstate. Has anyone on this forum used Scott, and if so, what was your experience like?

I'd be looking for something cheapish, only 140-200k that has neautral or positive cashflow. Could be a unit, townhouse or house. Do you think you could find a decent property in this price range on the Gold Coast, Brisbane or Sunshine Coast?


Are you interested in small jobs like this even though they pay alot less commission?

What is your up front fee and how much is the commission on settlement? If you'd rather answer by email feel free [email protected]

Regards

Luke

 

[Nimee]

Scott,

I am also interested in the answer to the above question.

Do you specialises in a specific price range or area? or could you find whatever the client asks of you?

 

[buyerforhire]

FrankGrimes/Nimee,

Even though you may be in a lower price bracket it is not a small job, as there is a lot of work required to find a good property at any time let alone the current market we are experiencing. I think the cashflow positive properties are about 99% gone in areas that will acheive good growth in the short to medium term.

For your price range, to acheive both growth and return, you would need to look at a unit or townhouse scenario. Approx 95% of all our clients would have a budget in excess of $250,000 and want a house and land. We have a base fee up to that figure ($250,000) of $5775 including registration fee ($1,100) and GST.

As an example in the outer lying suburbs between Brisbane and Beenleigh (More your budget) we are seeing properties sell within an hour of being listed and some agents have waiting lists of people from NSW, VIC etc ready to buy property sight unseen for either list price or above.

Personally I think that type of hype and heard mentality is scary and I certainly think that particular market is overheated .......... where will it all end? Now where was that crystal ball I bought the other day???!!!

Hope this satisfies your curiosity.

Scott.

 

[grubar30]

As an example in the outer lying suburbs between Brisbane and Beenleigh (More your budget) we are seeing properties sell within an hour of being listed and some agents have waiting lists of people from NSW, VIC etc ready to buy property sight unseen for either list price or above.

I’m not surprised they're interstate investors as locals know the beenliegh/woodrigde/kingston/etc corridor is very average for CG....sure, the yields are better than properties in the 5-10KM CDB radius, but don't expect your investment to go anywhere for years....I've mentioned this before in other posts, these areas are always the last in line to get their dues when any boom hits, and when their time in the sun comes, the window of opportunity is always tight before the correction occurs....

George

 

[buyerforhire]

George,

That thread was certainly a blast from the past and times they have certainly changed. Prices in those areas mentioned have come off significantly as back then it was impossible to get a well situated house and land under $200K but now there is a choice of properties under that figure. All said, it is an entry point into the market for investors, but for a little more money ($50K) we have found areas that will show the growth better.

Regards,
buyerforhire.

 

[MichaelW]

Hi Scott,

Didn't realise you were a poster here on SS!

I've still got you on my A-Team list, and will be looking you up as soon as I think there's some signs of life in the Brisbane market again. I know you'll probably suggest there's markets within markets, but on a macro level I think Brisbane has peaked now so am going to sit back and wait for it to start to turn up again before getting in.

Sydney has come off quite a lot since the hype of 2003 and is starting to get back to reasonable levels but has some distance yet to fall IMHO. I'll probably source my next IP locally in Sydney when I spot a good opportunity, and then hopefully ride the wave outwards as the next boom evolves. That will mean heading up North to Brisbane again once my Sydney IPs make me enough CG to pull via LOC as deposit on IPs north of the border.

Thanks for your time on the phone on the occassions that we have chatted and I look forward to doing business with you at some point in the (hopefully not too distant) future.

Cheers,
Michael.

 

[Stewie]

Scott, I am having real problems viewing your website - slow page downloads, incomplete page downloads etc. Is there a problem with your host? I am viewing from my work internet which is broadband - I am not having problems viewing other websites.

Just thought you might like to check it out.

 

[Jacque]

Hi Scott
Nice to see you on the forum again- it's been too long!
Hope you can stick around and impart some words of wisdom from time to time in between clients

 

[Jacque]

Scott, I am having real problems viewing your website - slow page downloads, incomplete page downloads etc. Is there a problem with your host? I am viewing from my work internet which is broadband - I am not having problems viewing other websites.

Just thought you might like to check it out.

Hi Stewie
I just checked it now and its all fast and good. Perhaps there's a server problem your end?

 

[buyerforhire]

Stewie,

I have checked it my end on a few terminals and all appears ok. Thanks for the head up though.

Regards,
Scott.