josiejo1974

Hiya

Not been on here for over 2½ years... But looking to see if anyone has any experience of selling their Aussie home privately??

Done the usual round of inviting the shark estate agents round and are essentially looking at the best part of $20k in commission payments alone and then the joys of all the advertising/auctions on top... Anyhow, looked up Zero Agents on the web and are now looking at an outlay of $500 to go it alone, seems a bargain, but has anyone had any experience of them?

Love to hear from you...

Wol

We intend to sell ours privately when they cart us off to a home. There are stickybeaks driving slowly past every few minutes, esp. at weekends: you only need one person to make an acceptable offer, after all!

TraceyW

Over here in Perth there is a company called "Commfree" and it costs $800 for them to give you a sign, all the flyers and place ads on Domain. I see a lot of Commfree signs in gardens.

We will deffo sell outs privately and hope it works. If there's another house for sale in our road, we will just do a home open for the same time there's is open and try to pull in their viewers (cheely sods I know but business is business). Buyers will very often just drive around the areas they are interested in and drop into home opens or take phone numbers and call you. We'll give it a few months trying to sell privately and if that fails we'll have to use a shark, although I begrudge paying them $15k.

Good luck to you

walaj

from a buyers perspective I would be wary of owner/sellers, just as much as I am for REA, but differing reasons. I would think that an owners/seller is too emotional involved and for starters would think too highly of their place and its' value.

If you go ahead privately, all the best, but on the other hand it is also no good saving, say $20k fees to sell the place for $25k less than REA could.

Swerv-o

The people I am buying my house from are selling privately. It's been (so far) a pretty painless experience - I have been able to get quick, straightforward answers, without having to go through an rea. Also, they have lived in the house for the last 10 years, so have been able to provide me with relevant documentation at the drop of a hat.

A month of private advertising on domain is about $300, so it's well worth giving it a punt to start with.

If you are going to try it, I would recommend doing a property sheet with lots of details, photos and a floor plan, then exporting it in PDF format, so that you can easily Email it to people. Also, approach a local signmaker and get a nice sign for the front of the house with all your contact details on. An ex colleague did this last year, and he sold in 2 weeks for just under the asking price...

S

S

Mandy&Cliff

OH and I have always been very sus of the large commissions attached to the selling of homes. Particularly when one thinks of the vast amounts of revenue an individual home actually generates both in terms of buying and selling over a period of say a decade if only 2 purchases and sales are made on the property. We feel the enormous prices charged by the agents are staggering. We paid, for one property $30K stamp on purchase and $26K on selling Never again.

We sold our own in the UK and did the conveyancing ourselves, just read a book from the library, purchased a conveyancing pack from WHSmith and off we went.

Did do the same here in QLD, put our own board up, purchaser, next day, negotiated the price (Full asking ) contract photocopied one from the REIQ signed it with the purchaser, and then presented it to our conveyancing firm. Use the same firm, negotiate discount.

Wol

That's certainly the standard *REA* gambit. However, my experience is that they will inflate the value of your home to get the listing then almost immediately start saying that the market won't pay that amount. After all, once they've got the business it's in their interest to move it on quickly - they will only "lose" a few hundred $$ whilst you lose thousands.

Swerv-o

This is true I think. They make their money from the vendor, not the buyer. This is why they make no effort to assist you in viewings if you can't make the open house - it's not time efficient for them. That's time when they could be out finding more vendors instead.

It's in the REA's interest to push the vendor into taking the highest bid on the day, irrespective of other interested parties. They don't want to spend any more time than is absolutely necessary on any one sale. The REA then moves on to their next vendor.

S

josiejo1974

Thanks a lot, we've pretty much decided to go it alone and are only looking at an initial outlay of under $1K, so if we don't succeed and have to use an Estate Agent then it's no great loss.

Will let you know how we go!

Cheers

renth

You might be interested in this:

"You receive a guarantee that the selling price you are quoted will be honest and accurate. If your home sells below the price quoted, you will not be charged any commission. This means you can trust the agent's quote."

http://www.jenman.com.au/AboutApproved-syh.php