Deposit amount in Perth

[Joel]

Hi people,

Is there a rule-of-thumb for an acceptable amount for a deposit on a residential property in Perth? 5% of purchase price? Looking at property ranging from $500k-1M.

Thanks,

Joel

 

[Shahin_Afarin]

whats the actual question? From a vendor or finance perspective?

 

[INVSTOR]

I've only ever put down $1000 regardless of purchase price.

 

[morg]

I'm guessing you are referring to the cash you give to the agency when your offer is accepted ?
If so, there is no rule of thumb.
With my last purchase I put down $1k on a 700k house.
It's just done to show you are genuine and do have something to lose if the deal falls over.

 

[Joel]

Apologies for my badly worded question, but you are all correct, I was referring to the cash deposit handed over to the agent.

Thanks for your super quick replies.

JL

 

[Dazz]

acceptable amount for a deposit

Depends 100% on the Vendor....and whether they are your typical clueless donkey or a hard-as-nails top flight negotiator.

You can put down any amount you want. $ 1 is an amount.

Converting that "amount" into an "acceptable amount" is totally dependent upon the Vendor.

If I was the Vendor, I wouldn't accept anything less than 5%, but preferably 10% to show you were serious in buying the title deed.

It's the security for your Offer to which the Vendor will hold you to account throughout the purchase process.

Little Mickey Mouse amounts like 1K or 10K would be instantly rejected as your offer and commitment to the deal as being a total joke, and hence treated as such by getting torn up and thrown in the bin.

No point mucking around when transacting chunks of dirt up to a million bucks.

 

[Shahin_Afarin]

you can put $1 down but if you are serious about the property - don't mess about.

 

[jim1964]

I've only ever put down $1000 regardless of purchase price.

Me too,once,it was $500 which was suggested by the agent(in 1999 )

 

[Jen_PFR]

We've paid from $1,000 to $10,000. Our usual position is $1,000 - anything more than that is only because the agent has said that the owner would need to see more to consider the offer 'serious'. As we always put our offers in writing through an O&A, I consider all our offers as being 'serious', but to each their own.

Our latest purchase (3 bed villa in low 400's - settlement scheduled to go through in early June) was accepted with a $1K deposit.

 

[Rixter]

I've put amounts ranging from nothing to $1k....

From my experience over the past 13 years building an Australia wide multi $million property portfolio, I have found it made no difference on having an offer accepted or not.

What the REA asks or insists you to put down is another matter though.

 

[Ausprop]

in this market you will need to make the offer as appealling as possible, so if you are serious with proceeding why not make it a good deposit? You are going to have to cough up a mill in a few weeks time anyway, so you should see this as an easy way to make your offer attractive at no real cost to yourself

having said that, if it was a bad market and you didn't care if you got the property or not, then sure $500

 

[Joel]

Thanks for all the replies. Interesting to see the wide range of what everyone has done.

Good point Ausprop that it's a "free"-ish way of making the offer more attractive. What would constitute a "good" deposit? 5-10% as mentioned in some replies?

 

[Ausprop]

10% would give the seller some comfort that you have some financial grunt. the agent will also be aware that his comm is covered so he will promote your offer above others (as on the day of settlement they can just transfer the comm from their trust account - if that's where you let it go - and make a payment on their Benz)

 

[onetwothreefour]

We put $500 last month for a low $400K property.

I think it depends on the seller or agents.

Some agents had no problem with low deposit.

The money goes to the agents bank account anyway, not the seller.

 

[Brady]

1. Auction 10%, $17.5k
2. $265k, $10k
3. $216k $2k