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Finally, the land settles. The Real Estate agents and the Lawyers take their money directly out of the sales fee before you even see it which saves you having to write a cheque out. Depending on which side of the fence you sit this may be a good thing as you can put all those sleepless nights and what seems endless negotiations behind you. What’s really depressing and makes you reach for the first stiff drink that you can find is the moment that the new bank balance [that looks like your hard work has actually paid off] suddenly gets blown to smithereens by the bank clearing out the mortgage and every other loan you ever took out by leveraging against your property in the first place.
If there’s a delay between the property settling and the lawyers telling your bank, you could withdraw all your money and book a flight to Mexico and sip margaritas on the beach watching the sun go down for the foreseeable future while the purchaser tries to find you (of course we don’t condone this behaviour but it’s something that lawyers can mess up on and as a seller leave you high and dry). Unfortunately, we were too slow and had to deal with a slightly less than depressing bank balance instead.
On a brighter note we can finally move on “literally” to pastures new. Reflect on what was but not too long because regardless if you had a good or bad experience with that property I bet you learnt something new, even if it was “not to make the same mistake again”.
Some points worth considering when selecting your vendors [Selling] agent:
Brand Selection
Agent selection:
Last but not least ask yourself why you bought this property, where did you see the advert and who might buy it now? Write down a typical profile of your buyer (age group, budget etc) and put yourself in their shoes i.e. if your home is by a marina why not advertise in a yachting magazine or on the local yacht club notice board etc.
It’s often said that selling a property can be a stressful experience, well in New Zealand this can be true. Although the New Zelaand Real Estate industry is regulated it is actually self regulated by its own founding companies. Well this was certainly true up until late 2009 when the governement installed a new body known as the REAA – Real Estate Agents Authority. Only time will tell whether this has any effect on making the industry more responsible for its actions but all I can tell you is “your selling experience is only as good as the agent you list with” and their motivation to sell your property.
In New Zealand vendors agents rule covering 99.9% of the market, the other 0.1 percent being mostly companies or individuals who call themselves buyers agents but are actually working under vendors agent companies. What worries me is rightly or wronly these vendors agents often haven’t a clue about marketing and more importantly haven’t a clue about civil or structural engineering.
The number of times I’ve wandered curiously into a open home on any one of my various journeys around the world only to be told that this property is structurally sound and upon further interogation of the sellers agent told that they’ve no actual facts to support this worries me considerably. Afterall, we’re not exactly buying a rubbish book that promised so much and delivered so little that we discarded on the plane like yesterdays newspaper. This is perhaps one of our biggest investments that we could lose dearly on.
So back on track to the selling experience, we tried various agencies only for us to be continually told to invest several thousand dollars in their marketing so that they once sold can charge us around 4% commission. How many industries do you as the owner pay someone else to market your product only for them to charge you a commission when they sell it? Am I missing the point here? Anyway, we confided in an agent who we thought was fairly switched on, presentable and fairly well spoken. During a site visit with a client of mine who was potentially interested in a trade (my property for his) she learned that I had approached my new neighbour but was unsuccessful in meeting him as I rarely visited the Bay of Islands anymore and he was often travelling. So when I left for my 3 hour drive back to Auckland (after buying the agent a coffee) she approached my neighbour and asked if he would put in an offer, and guess what, he did want to albeit way below registered valuation…………….
For the purposes of this story I shall identify myself as “Dan” a degree educated, English speaking, late thirties European male who has earned every single penny (or cent) in my professional life i.e. I haven’t had any donations from my family to assist climbing the property ladder. I am married with a young family and own my own technology consultancy that operates in the Auckland region.
The journey starts here, selling a large piece of waterfront land in the Bay of Islands that I bought in 2002. We intended on building a family home on this piece of land but circumstances led us to residing two hours south closer to Auckland.
Having a mortgage on this piece of land and renting closer to Auckland meant that even though we enjoyed a salary in the top five percent of New Zealanders even we had to curtail my life long dream of designing and building my own home until we sold the land. Like many governments around the world the New Zealand tax system has a strong affect when trying to “reap your rewards” on your investment in education and working hard for a living. So here we are, looking to sell our dream land in order to design and build closer to the more expensive and less lifestyle orientated Auckland surrounds.
