Property Selling in Australia
How to and the intricacies, you need to know
If you have read about “Property Buying in Australia”, this Selling Property post would be certainly interesting.
If you want to read the original post again, just click the link below.
It’s has been a passion to share the learnings over a period of time. It’s about Property buying in Sydney, Australia. After you read, you may think its the best article with right intention to share. Or could be judged as otherwise. Its my learning and I am sure you will get one or two points for your Journey from this post.
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Selling a property - again, this is my personal experience, and do not take this as financial or real estate advice. These are some of the guard rails for you to check with your family before you sell your home in NSW, Australia
Selling takes a considerable amount of time and it all boils down to how well you are prepared. I strongly feel that the are numbers floating around like :
#Record Price in Suburb
#Fastest sale in suburb in terms of # of days in market,
#how many people saw the property in how many inspection,
#if auction, then how many bid registered and how many actual bids
Before we delve deep into this topic, there are some key words which we should go over with :
Auction: Auction implies that the house is on the market for sale, buyers can bid or out-bid themselves, and should be prepared to sign the 66W (NSW) form. What it means is that you cannot backout from this sale, once you have won the auction and signed the contract. PERIOD. There is NO cool off period.
Private treaty/sale: Property is available for the buyers in the market. Vendor is ready to accept the cool off period. This could be 5 days or 10 days. These are working days (not calendar days).
Vendor: The person who is the owner of the house currently and interested in selling it.
RealEsate Agent: Note: This agent is working for the Vendor. When this agent speaks to Vendor, what he speaks etc will not be visible to buyers. It’s this agent’s primary duty to is meet the requirements of the Vendor. The requirements, what can be achieved etc would have been already discussed and agreed with Vendor as part of Real estate agent’s contract.
Going Live: Means, the property will get advertised in the platforms like Realestate.com.au, Domain.com.au and agent’s website on this day. Typically Tuesday late night, but can vary.
Styling: Styling is for the property being sold. Whether do you need virtual styling ie your house will be virtually furnished and shown to prospective buyers. When they come and do the inspection, the house will be still empty/tenanted. A caution in this approach is that you are changing the perception/view of the buyer on how the house looks like in photos/in real. Just be aware of this. Physical styling is arranging the furniture etc in the house in real. Buyers can come and feel/see the house as if their own and it provides a perspective of how the house could look when they move in.
Inspection: Inspection is arranged by the Selling Agent to the potential buyers. It could be one time, multiple times and it all left to the real estate agent
Contract: Contract between yourself and the real estate agent for agreeing to the terms and conditions /providing exclusivity to the agent. This is nothing related to your house contract
Contact of Sale: This is the contract of the house. Normally prepared by the Solicitors by discussing the details with you and then they also do many activities like reaching out to council (if required), Title search etc.
With these information, I am sure you would have got the gist of selling.
Browse through the local market where your house is and analyse the agent profiles.
If you know someone has already done well and the prices is competitive, then go for it. Price - I means is 1 )What’s the conditions of the sale 2)what’s the commission % for the sale. Typically from 1.8% of the sale price. Or based on the current market conditions. Is there any condition do you want to ensure ie if the sale price is more than $1M, then extra .01% commission will be given ? you can be as creative as possible.
Solicitor : You should have a solicitor with yourself to prepare the contract of sale, instruct them on what conditions are you flexible for change eg: will you as vendor accept anything less than 10% deposit? if yes, what’s the min % (5%?). Will you accept change in cool off period or settlement days? You have to be crystal clear on all these.
The impact of all these would be seen and it will be so sudden when the sale goes through.
Prepare your house:
If you know and decided that you have to sell the property, then stop investing unnecessarily on the house. Do the much need items only. Discuss with real estate agent and take help to decide which renovation will help to increase the price of the house. Go for that only. This can happen anyway between 3-6 months before the house goes for sale.
Shop around and check how’s is the market for yourself. You can depend on multiple reports and multiple workflow process for each agent. You can leave everything to agent or you can test out the market yourself. Go to auctions and private treaty/inspections to see how the house are selling (for your house configuration). it would be helpful to decide and negotiate with your selling agent also. Example: A 2 bedroom+1 bath Villa in Blacktown area is NOT equal to a 2 bedroom+1 bath villa in seven hills area. A Villa which has potential to make the second bathroom or a second toilet already built by current owner would be in different price range. AirCon / Duct or no aircon/duct - makes difference.
Gardening - Would help to present the house in a neat manner.
Internal - Would you like to leave the house empty when the inspection happens? or would you be occupying the house ? Minor decision but MAJOR impact.
If you stay : please understand that whenever the agent asks for inspection, you have to clean the house, surroundings and leave the home for inspection.
If you leave empty : Presentation can be better. Still you have to clean, but cleaning is much easier than occupied house. Potential to earn more (don’t quote me here)
Have a very good working relationship with the Real estate agent.
Wish you Good luck in selling your home.
Be prepared to take the calls/sms from the agents on Saturday/Sunday and Monday. You don’t know when the buyer will provide an offer to get the contract closed. More preparation work will help you to take the decision which is comfortable to you when the house is ready for inspection/inspected already.
Financially,
Do you know what you are going to do with the sale proceeds?
Is this $ required before you buy another house?
Have you already purchased another house for which this $ is required?
If yes, then adjust your settlement date for the sale of your house and purchase of new house accordingly.
Give time for the transfer of money from one account to another. If the transfer is more than $20,000 (AUD), then you may not be able to do it online. Please check with your Financial Institution.
There are forms which will be asked by the Real Estate Agent/Office for you to fill up the bank details. Ensure that these are checked and verified properly.