Housng Commission property

[RetireRich101]

Has anyone purchased a Housing Commission property directly/privately from them rather than in a open market/public auction?

In other words has anyone approach Department of Housing private to sell a house to you? What was the results?

 

[Propertunity]

Personally, I've never tried buying privately from Dept of Housing, however, I strongly suspect since they are a public asset, that it would need to go to tender or auction so that it can be demonstrated to the public owners, that the best price was achieved on the open market.

Otherwise, any mate of yours in the Dept of Housing could sell it to you cheap and that arrangement would be seen to be open to corruption.

 

[bbmick]

http://www.housing.nsw.gov.au/Forms+Policies+and+Fact+Sheets/Policies/Sale+of+Homes+Policy.htm

Public Sales

"Vacant homes may be sold to members of the public if the homes are no longer suitable for public housing. Housing NSW may also sell community and commercial properties owned from Housing from time to time.
Sales to the public are by public auction through a Real Estate Agent. Agents are chosen by competitive tender.
Private treaty (one to one) sales are only considered in exceptional circumstances and need the approval of the Chief Executive.
If the auction fails to reach the reserve price, the agent will try to find a purchaser and continue the sale by private treaty. The Chief Executive’s approval is not required in this case."


I've only purchased by public auction also, but did notice the same rep seemed to be present at these auctions in the this particular country district and they even mentioned they were doing some more soon in another town a few hours away, so they seemed to cover a fairly large area.

I think the best you can do is to get early notice from such reps or strike up a relationship with local agents. I've had calls from an agent who was tendering for a contract to auction (even though they didn't win) for upcoming (not yet advertised) houses coming on the market. Agents that know you're serious about buying will usually let you know about such properties, but getting them to think you're not just a tyre kicker is the hard part sometimes. In my case I'd already shown I'm a person of action by purchasing 2 of these on the same day.

 

[RetireRich101]

Very useful information here, and the bottom line is that HC properties can not be purchased privately unless no bidders in a public auction.

I was drilling into rpdata the other day and was interested in corner blocks in a particular region/surburb with small development potential, such as 'splitter' or sell off backyard etc. I noticed a few are HC properties. I guess all those corner block with potential have been snapped up very quickly by developers/builders.

 

[knightm]

Very useful information here, and the bottom line is that HC properties can not be purchased privately unless no bidders in a public auction.

I was drilling into rpdata the other day and was interested in corner blocks in a particular region/surburb with small development potential, such as 'splitter' or sell off backyard etc. I noticed a few are HC properties. I guess all those corner block with potential have been snapped up very quickly by developers/builders.

Yep they are going to have to be open market. Also some have owner occupied covenants and other limitations. Looked at some in Dubbo recently with very restrictive long term o/o covenants. Others might be o/o and means tested for a month and if they don't sell then its open market.

The trick is to buy them counter to the property cycle - so in the quiet times when there is no competition. If you are trying to buy in Blacktown today then good luck.