Passed in at auction... Maybe sell it myself?

Hi,

My house passed in at auction today. I am confident my reserve price was right, this was a valuation from 3 independent RA agents.
I hoped to get some more.... now it's a straightforward affair - here is the price, here is the house.

Agent authority expiries next Saturday.

Now, my plan is - just sell it myself. You see, the agent did not even provide a price on advertisements. This clearly did not work in my case.

I noticed http://www.realestate.com.au did not allow ads from private sellers, only RA agents. I'm also not sure how the private ad will look in the local newspaper...

Should I bite the bullet and sign in with another RA agent?
 
Why not look up Red Direct. Someone mentioned them on Somersoft recently and I contacted them regarding getting privately managed rentals onto realestate.com which they are interested in pursuing.

In the meantime, they can get your house on realestate.com, domain and myhouse for a small fee but I don't know much about them.

Look them up on the net and see what you think.

Wylie
 
Thanks Wylie,

I will give them a try....

I also checked local newspaper and there are no individual sale ads.
People just don't sell houses themselves, there is always an agency involved!

So I'm thinking is it a good idea to change agency now. New agency will bring new buyers. On the other hand, if I stick with current agency they will pay for ads.
 
No, you will pay for ads. One way or another. Do a search on here for private sale(s). Should be a fair bit of info.
 
You can put an ad in the local paper classifieds, or in the "wanted to sell" section if there is one.

Also, a lot of houses are sold to people in your neighborhood. Try putting a sign in the front yard, and even a sign on the local community noticeboard inside the local supermarket. You'll be surprised who will see it.

Our neighbor next door advertised his block of land with an agent, which we later bought after the authority expired, and the people next door to us have recently offered to buy our house in Dromana. We haven't got it for sale; they just want to buy it. So give it a go.

Just remember that all the agents will see both the ad in the paper and the sign in the front yard, maybe even the noticeboard one as well, and will pester you to death to give them the listing.

Tell them you will give them a $1,000 commission on a 30 day exclusive sale authority and listen for their reaction. This is a source of great fun and amusement for me; sick, I know, but they rang me - I didn't ring them. if you are generous you might want to up the commission to $1,500 and a 45 day authority. They will fail to see the humour in this.

Get your solicitor to prepare a Sale Contract ahead of time.

One more thing; don't believe that a "new agency will bring more buyers". I was an agent for a time, and I can promise you that the buyers are trawling the agencies week-in, week-out.
If you move to another agency they will know, and assume that you are really motivated to sell and will low-ball you to death.

Better off to take it off the market for a few months, then put it back on again with the new agent; with a price increase maybe. Someone will always offer lower than asking price.

Also; don't pay for any advertising - same reason; the buyers are already out there looking. All you need is:
1.an internet listing (the agent will do that automatically for free or tell them to go to hell - nicely, of course),
2.a very basic for sale sign on the front fence,
3.some flyers in the agent's office,
4.a photo in the agent's office window.

Total cost: about $50 or so for the flyers. The sign will be free, as the agent will want their head and/or name plastered all over it. Let them pay for that.

Agents hate this of course, and will try to extoll the virtues of several thousands of dollars that you should pay in ads, but I can promise you; it's totally wasted money.

Agents want you to do it because they make money out of the ads. Don't be fooled by the disclosure on the Sale Authority that they don't get 'kickbacks' from the newspapers.

Be very firm but polite and decline all ads except the format I've listed above.
 
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With all due respect, agents don't always have incentive to give you the 'correct' price. They have an incentive to give you the price that will get you to sign up with them.

Why not get a bank valuation and see if that's much different from the agents' ones?
Alex
 
Further to Alex's thread, I haven't sold many properties all up, and I only sold one property ever where I didn't know the local values well.

I was aware of the agents tactics to try and "buy" the listing, so I did the following:

With this case I asked 5 different agencies to come around and make their sales pitch, including their estimate of it's value.

Surprisingly, they were all within 5% of each other on a property selling for $750k supposedly.

This gave me a lot of confidence that the price they were quoting was reasonably accurate for the market, and not an attempt to buy the listing.
 
With this case I asked 5 different agencies to come around and make their sales pitch, including their estimate of it's value.

Well, I have 3 different agencies to come around. The estimation was consistent.

A 3br house on my street been sold for 416K. It has 2 living areas and a double garage, which I don't. They also has a flat roof, I would never buy for that reason but perhaps it doesn't matter for other buyers.

Another 4BR house directly opposite mine, on exact same corner block been sold for 380K. That house has a timber "top-up" story which may increase the value but overall the house is renovators delight (inside and outside) while mine has been nicely renovated.

My reserve price and asking price for 4BR house today is 380K. No, I don't think I am unreasonable with pricing.

Probably will change the agent. My current one knows the auctions, I will go to another agent who knows "private sales".
 
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