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Thread: Has anyone sold their house on Trade Me ?

  1. #11
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    Quote Originally Posted by Diny

    Then - the local real estate agent (who lives in this village) called by to see us to offer his 'help'. At first we told him 'no way' but after abit of back and forth we decided to give him 4 weeks to list our property. We wouldn't agree to anything up front and told him that if he did get a sale then we wouldn't be paying any stupid % rate of the price, we told him what we were willing to pay him by the means of a flat fee. I have to admit he was taken aback by this, but we didn't really care. He had 2 choices - take it or leave it. We were in no hurry to sell.
    Way to go

    Gotta love your negotiating skills!

  2. #12
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    Quote Originally Posted by Karen and Rich Matthews
    Strangely, it only got complicated once the solicitors became involved.

    I know what you mean. We did all the negotiating with the vendor of our new place, we sat down on a Saturday evening over a beer and chatted about what both of us wanted. We decided on mutual moving dates, decided when to go unconditional, decided what deposit to pay - it was all very easy and civilised. Then the lawyers got involved and everything became so stiff and regimented. I guess it had to be that way to make everything legal and watertight, but the first bit of the deal was very relaxing.

    By the way - I call her the lawyer because the other day she pulled me up about referring to her as a solicitor. She said 'Mrs Norrie - I trained and qualified in New Zealand - I am a lawyer'. Oops - how to make friends and influence people eh.

    Diny

  3. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Diny
    She said 'Mrs Norrie - I trained and qualified in New Zealand - I am a lawyer'.
    Diny
    I trained and qualified in NZ, and when I was admitted to the Bar the official wording was "A Barrister and Solicitor of the High Court of New Zealand". I certainly don't see anything wrong with calling a lawyer a solicitor. And rude of her to correct you like that anyhow, especially given how much you're probably paying her.
    Last edited by Oregonkiwi; 27th May 2006 at 10:12 AM.

  4. #14
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    While I am all for people analyzing what an agent actually does (or doesn't do) in the whole process -- and having a go themselves if the results of this analysis are encouraging -- we did use an agent to sell our Te Kuiti house.

    Our situation was fairly unusual in that we only lived there for 1-2 months before a few factors -- not least finding our lovely little current cottage 45 mins. closer to Auckland -- prompted us to move.

    For us, speed of sale was quite a priority although we did have a contingency plan if interest was sluggish. Anyway, we went to the agent who sold us the house, and she had a buyer for it within a week or so. Price suited us, too... although as you can imagine, after agent and solicitor fees we were hardly left rolling in cash.

    A key factor for us, in deciding to use agent and solicitor, was that we did not at the time have the inclination to juggle doing it ourselves -- and doing it correctly so as to avoid big costs or hassles further down the track -- with our other daily commitments.

    (That last point might be worth reflecting on for a moment for some folks, especially if time, energy or other commodities are a bit marginal for you right now. E.g., it might be worth 'losing' a few $K in agent fees if in your precise situation the quick sale that an agent provides will thereby avoid your having to take on two sizeable mortgages. Going the DIY-sale route might have worked glowingly for a neighbour... who was not having to cope with being a newcomer to the country or did not have your particular circumstances.)

    Also, I think it's worth remembering the value of making a good, clear decision about which way to jump, then going for it wholeheartedly. We decided on an agent, got our sale, and did not then really regret the few $K the agent got. Ditto money spent on our good solicitor. Perhaps the biggest danger is in not quite being convinced that the way one has chosen is effective, and thus either going into it half-ar$ed and making costly mistakes or kicking oneself for having paid agent-and-legal fees when, in fact, the sale went through cleanly and one is now in or out of the desired property.
    We tried to "choose our weapons" carefully to begin with, but then we went with it and, above all, got out of and into the properties we wanted.

    As a final word, I hope the above does not sound overly neat or self-congratulatory. We do NOT discount the roles that factors such as luck and timing might have played, very significantly, for us.
    Last edited by MB; 27th May 2006 at 08:41 PM.

  5. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oregonkiwi
    And rude of her to correct you like that anyhow, especially given how much you're probably paying her.

    You're not wrong there, at Christmas I was given a gold pen, thanks for our custom kind of thing.

    I was thrilled and said to hubby - look, they've given me this (really flash) free pen. He just laughed and said 'believe me, that pen was NOT free'.

    Diny

  6. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by MB
    (That last point might be worth reflecting on for a moment for some folks, especially if time, energy or other commodities are a bit marginal for you right now. E.g., it might be worth 'losing' a few $K in agent fees if in your precise situation the quick sale that an agent provides will thereby avoid your having to take on two sizeable mortgages. Going the DIY-sale route might have worked glowingly for a neighbour... who was not having to cope with being a newcomer to the country or did not have your particular circumstances.)
    Good point, MB

    One of our neighbour do the DIY sale and his house was on the market for more 4 months. When his next-door neighbour use an agent, it was sold in 2 weeks. Frustrated with the situation, the DIY sale neighbour quickly switch to the same agent who sold the next-door house, and guess what ? His house was sold within 2 weeks.

  7. #17
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    Really good points raised. It's a hard decision because we could end up spending a bit on advertising our selves,then if it doesn't sell, going with an agent and then it would have cost us even MORE !!

    Decisions decisions.......

  8. #18
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    Quote Originally Posted by Singel
    Good point, MB

    One of our neighbour do the DIY sale and his house was on the market for more 4 months. When his next-door neighbour use an agent, it was sold in 2 weeks. Frustrated with the situation, the DIY sale neighbour quickly switch to the same agent who sold the next-door house, and guess what ? His house was sold within 2 weeks.
    Yes. I suspect that for some people the aim is (or should be?) not to get what is objectively the maximum financial return, but to get the max. financial return given their own other pressures and circumstances.

    It reminds me of when we sold our modest townhouse near Seattle. We had been in it 2 years and got a huge amount of interest as soon as it was online, and sold it within a couple of days to a really solid, worthy buyer who offered a very competitive price and went the extra mile of always being available to deal with, etc. (BTW, don't get me wrong: we did not by any means make anything more than a respectable but modest profit (this wasn't a detached house in a now-slick suburb)).
    Thing is, we could have held out for longer, maybe getting seduced by one of the wilder other offers. But what if those turned out to be not as solid and serious as her offer, and fell through after offerer's reflection? Or what if interest died down alarmingly and we were left wondering why we didn't take one of the early, perfectly healthy offers (we did get the advantage of a little competitive bidding in those first few days, incidentally)? Or what if the objective valuation was way below any unrealistically high offers?
    Remember, we had NZ deadlines and costs to juggle and a lot depended on the sale going through quite quickly.
    So we made our choice, our buyer was happy, we were happy. We maybe could have got more money, but all our own other logistics simply made this possibility not worth the gamble.

    IMHO, in that situation getting too rabidly starry-eyed about money, to the exclusion of all else, might well have left us in the position of one of those slapstick scenes where a driver revs his one engine to the max and then speeds away, all right...but leaving 90% of his load sitting in the driveway.
    Last edited by MB; 28th May 2006 at 01:34 PM.

  9. #19
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    Well - we signed with an agent today !!

    We decided that it would be a lot more convenient, as we have 2 dogs so we can just take them out for walks during open homes and visits. Also we're going to be away a far bit over the next couple of months so we can just hand over a key and relax ( sort of ! )
    She was negotiable with her commision and came down a bit so.... pretty sure we made the right decision, all we have to do now os keep the house clean and tidy always. OMG......

    Thanks for your input guys

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