G’day team,
Pedro here reporting from my recent (last night) attendance at the PARKHEATH (Jeff Proud) evening chat.
My overall impression – Not bad. Certainly no NII.
Generally, It’s aimed at newbies (which I still am, I guess) and a little basic. He starts off with some of the standard “retiree statistics” and how people are often debt phobic. He provides a very useful Traps & Tips on the handout to be aware of (which most of the experienced forumites would know – but still Quite good I thought) and discusses each in detail.
The expected sales pitch is very much understated and subtle. He does not pressure or intimidate. There are no “RUN TO THE BACK AND SIGN UP NOW, OR I’LL INCREASE THE PRICE” tactics. There is no messing with the temperature.
He is effectively a Buyers agent. He will source properties from any Cap city on the East coast. But he currently prefers Bris, Syd, Mel, Cbr in that order. He actually flies around to all the locations to view and assess a Property before submitting it to the client. I have spoken to quite a few agents and almost without exception, RE agents resist giving opinions on suburbs outside their area of interest. Let alone another city. What do people think about a guy who claims to know the property markets of 4-5 major cities?
His fees are the same as the fees charged by the Selling agent. So if the seller has agreed to 2% commission to his agent, Jeff will charge you 2% also. I find it difficult to see how the client could get some transparency on this. He also says that if he can negotiate with the selling agent to receive some of the sellers commission, then he will reduce your fee by that amount. Also a little difficult to monitor for the client (in my opinion.). He will not charge anything until settlement has occurred. Should the client, any time before settlement (Contract Exchange I think he means here), decide to take his business elsewhere, and Jeff has incurred expenses (Travel etc) he will bill the client for those ($3000 flat I think he said). BUT if the client states that he/she is pulling out due to dissatisfaction of his services, he claims that he will not force them to pay.
He also plugs a similar concept to the SN Cashbond. Although he does not offer to set it up just makes people aware of it.
Jeff said that he did not come from one of these “rags to riches” background, but he did have a couple of failing businesses in the 90’s. (Not sure if that was a wise thing to say or not. Did they fail due to incompetence?) Also he’s only been running PARKHEATH for 3 years and has built up to a current average of 6 settlements per month. He says he wants to stay small to continue with “Personal 1 to 1” service for his clients. Also he personally owns 4 IP’s which he’s acquired over the last 3 or 4 years.
Overall, I came away feeling that Jeff has significant ethical values and had done no harm to his business.