What's an "honest liar" in real estate and when will they be no more?

Plus: The two key things you should look for when buying an apartment.

Ewan Morton pulls no punches on why agents do the wrong thing and we have a bit of spirited debate about the pros and cons of buying new apartments. This energetic conversation traverses two very contentious issues and there are loads of revelations:

• How is a good agent able to overcome a lack of trust and manage to help both the owner as well as the buyer.
• Agents no longer hold all the information but it’s not a bad thing.
• How agents have been punished for telling the truth by vendors.
• His dialogue for telling vendors “as it is” when they should take an offer.
• The secret to getting more money out of buyers.
• How he gets buyers to trust him and why buyers should disclose info to agents.
• Treating agents with respect doesn’t mean buyers are not in control.
• Changing attitudes to apartment living and the debate about oversupply.
• What’s with the quality of new builds?
• The important things to research before buying a brand new apartment.

Another cracker episode, Ewan does not hold back!

Links:

Corelogic reports

http://store.corelogic.com.au/buyer-perceptions-of-real-estate-agents

http://store.corelogic.com.au/vendor-perceptions-of-real-estate-agents

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Will the real estate agent of the future be trustworthy?

John Cunningham is a respected name in the estate and he is currently spearheading the Pathway to Professionalism program across the country. He brings surprising insights into what’s wrong with the real estate industry and why agents have no choice but to embrace change. We talk about:

• Why the property industry is ripe for disruption

• How will agents provide advice even though only the vendor pays them?

• The skills gap in agents across Australia.

• Problem with dumbed down “popular” agent training.

• The small percentage of agents he thinks are able to become professional

• Scarcity mindset versus abundance mindset and how this affects consumers.

• Is the end of real estate commissions in sight?

• The surprising churn rate of sales agents.

• Are Purple Bricks really a disruptor?

• What this unregulated market costs buyers.

• Why buyers make mistakes, what they’re doing wrong.

• Who is in control when you make an offer.

The future looks bright for some but not all agents. This is one very interesting interview, especially for buyers and sellers who’ll want to be able deal only with professional agents.

Links -John Cunningham’s eBooks: Owners Guide Buyers Guide  Investors Guide Sellers Guide

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Can buyers ever win from being honest with real estate agents?

What really makes prices go up (hint: it’s not the agents…)

Sales agent and principal Michael Harris reveals the challenges real estate agents face when having price conversations with both vendors and buyers. It seems not everyone is ready to face the truth. Other revelations in this episode include:

• What makes an agent over-excited and believe in the property they are selling.
• Is a “great sales person” really the best sales agent?
• What makes a good property and what “rubbish” property looks like.
• Is there really a buyer for every house?
• Presentation tricks used by vendors.
• The biggest frustration agents have with buyers.
• Why buyers should open up to some agents and how much they should share.
• The dangers buyers face when they look before they have finance approved.
• The impact of credit tightening and why inner city home owners are staying put.
• Different types of pre-auction negotiation processes and when it’s best for a buyer to go to auction.
• How to be taken seriously when you make an offer.
• How agents recognise the early signs of a turning market.
• The pitfalls of taking advice from family and friends.
• Is the first offer a vendor receives really the best one?

If you want to understand how the slowing market affects property in the inner city, you’ll need to listen to this conversation.

Links:

Veronica’s blog on misleading headlines

https://gooddeeds.com.au/property-buyers-tip/the-australian-property-market-is-not-going-to-drop-7-5/

Freakonomics video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pbFkw_roJqI

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How to ensure you're protected by your building & pest inspection or strata report

What do unexploded bombs, red flags, lemons and dogs have in common?

Michael Ferrier joined us for a no-holds-barred talk about property inspections. What goes into them, what’s wrong with them and why you need them. He reveals some really important issues for property buyers:

• Circumstances when strata reports won’t be 100% accurate.
• The biggest warning sign to look for in a strata report.
• What’s better to buy: new or old?
• The biggest major issue in new apartments & who is obliged to fix defects.
• When it’s a good idea to get a building & pest inspection on a block of units
• Why he lobbied against compulsory building & pest inspections in contracts.
• The questions to ask before engaging a building inspector.
• The purpose of a building report and the best question to ask the inspector.
• The magic number of inspections a building inspector can do a day before the report suffers
• What “parking inspector” reports are and why they are dangerous.
• The circumstances under which buyers are covered by pre-purchase reports and when they aren’t

Don’t rely on a pre-inspection report until you listen to this episode!

Links

EYEON resources for buyers and sellers:

https://www.eyeon.com.au/resources/

https://www.eyeon.com.au/2018/03/26/commission-based-sales/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Chris & Veronica discuss the need to make smarter decisions around property now that we can’t get access to as much money following APRA intervention & the Royal Commission.

• Borrowing capacity is a finite resource so we need to use it wisely

• Why the banks won’t lend you as much money as they used to

• The new impact of poor investments on your lifestyle

• The disposition effect and how it leads to selling the wrong property

• What locations and properties lose the most money when the market drops

• The secret to buying property that will survive a market downturn

• The biggest single impact on capital growth

• What the future holds for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane & Perth

• Whether affordable locations make good investments

• The finer points you need to know when selecting an A grade investment property

• How to identify a “flyer”, “floater” or “flop” and when to hold or when to sell

• The circumstances when hotspotting can work

• The problem with new units and townhouses in Sydney

• How to decide which property to sell

An entire episode dedicated to the juicy topics of debt, risk, the quality of assets, rewards of patience and planning for the future.

https://www.theelephantintheroom.com.au/podcasts/9

Veronica's blogs on: https://gooddeeds.com.au/property-selection/not-all-sydney-property-prices-fall/ https://gooddeeds.com.au/investment-property/8-reasons-capital-growth-primary-investment-objective/ https://gooddeeds.com.au/property-buyers-tip/reasons-not-to-buy-a-property/

Work with Veronica? [email protected]

Work with Chris? [email protected]

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bidding on-site, in-rooms or online: which way makes buyers pay more?

David Scholes has conducted some 40,000 auctions over his career and candidly shares with us many examples of buyers pushing themselves beyond their limits, the auctioneer’s role in getting them to do this and the extreme times when he actually stops mid-auction because a bidder is over extended!

Other insights include:

• The seven stages of an auction and which one is the most important.
• His frustrations with sales agents.
• How smart agents will handle a situation when only one bidder is registered.
• The impact of momentum on the sales price.
• How a pedantic auctioneer could cost the vendor money.
• Why the reserve price isn’t important.
• The different ways buyers can respond to the pressure of an auction and which ones annoy auctioneers.
• How he lures reluctant bidders.
• What experienced bidders do to control an auction.
• The real reason auction clearance rates drop in a transitional market.
• The psychology of online property auctions and whether they will replace on-site/in-rooms auctions.
• Are there differences auctioning in Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra & Sydney?

Experience counts: David’s observations of the past 5 Sydney property cycles will enlighten you.

Links:

AuctionWORKS videos

Auctionworks Tutorial - Contracts

auctionworksONLINE - The Process

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Are pre-auction offers really in a buyer's best interests?

The inside scoop on why more properties sell before auction in a slowing market

Mary Anne Cronin, sales agent at PPDRE in Sydney’s Eastern Beaches, talks about buyer behaviour in her patch as well as sharing insights into the whole pre-auction offer process. We cover a lot of ground in this interview, including:

• The things property buyers do that surprise her
• The precise point in a marketing campaign where buyers lose interest
• How she works both buyers and vendors in a slowing market
• The importance of transparency in negotiations
• How educated buyers can put themselves at a disadvantage
• What and how downsizers are buying in her area
• Meaningful questions buyers should be asking real estate agents
• The decisions buyers need to make when trying to upgrade into a house

And we get the answer to that multi-million dollar question: why are prices so high in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs?

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-anne-cronin-8328aa12/

Phillips Pantzer Donnelly

http://www.ppdre.com.au/

Maryanne’s Bondi Snapshot

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB_adtLTgw-bCo3O0Eb-sMw

Veronica’s videos:

When is the best time to buy property in Sydney?

Do houses increase in value more than apartments?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn how to sort through property data and choose what's important

Don't believe the hype! What property statistics can you rely on?

Kent Lardner is a “geek with a personality” and he discusses different types of property data and explains what’s important. Knowing a little bit can be dangerous, largely because of the inconsistencies & nuances of data, of which most of us know nothing. In our chat we cover:

• The trouble with median sales data
• What information you need to look at beyond sales data
• How agent bias can affect vendor price expectations
• What goes into an AVM (automated valuation model), when they are used and why automated estimates vary so much from actual sales prices in Australia
• Technological advances that might soon mean machines replace property valuers & real estate agents
• Short term and long term indicators that predict capital growth
• When and how to seek out local knowledge
• Tips for making an objective assessment of property value so you can work out what to pay
• How to use search engines to uncover more properties with potential

If you want to make better property decisions, this episode is a must-listen-to!

JLL

http://www.jll.com.au/australia/en-au

SEIFA scores

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Lookup/by%20Subject/2033.0.55.001~2016~Main%20Features~SOCIO-ECONOMIC%20INDEXES%20FOR%20AREAS%20(SEIFA)%202016~1

Zillow Zestimate

https://www.zillow.com/zestimate/

House Canary

https://www.housecanary.com/

Will robots take my job?

https://willrobotstakemyjob.com/

Free download - list of property data sources

Social

Linked In

√Twitter

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Confessions of a sales agent; what the future holds and what needs to change.

This is quite a philosophical conversation with Shannan Whitney of BresicWhitney about the relevance of real estate agents in our changing world. We talked about many “elephants” and Shannan did not hold back on discussing:

• Outmoded real estate agent practises
• How self promotion in the age of social media misses the mark
• Where industry awards fall short and reward the wrong type of behaviour
• How the accepted measures of success fail both vendors and buyers
• Why the current industry structure doesn’t support change
• The importance of trust in a real estate transaction and how lack of trust hurts both buyers and sellers
• How published price guides make agents accountable, which is why many won’t commit to them
• What happens behind the scenes when a low offer is made
• Decoding “agent-speak” with some handy translations
• What do auction price guides really mean?

The insights in this episode about the offer process will change the way you buy your next property.

Links:

www.bresicwhitney.com.au

Veronica’s blogs on auction quoting:

How to decode auction price guides.

Video: what do auction price guides mean?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How your emotions are targeted before you get to the open house.

The secret to influencing buyers when selling lifestyle properties. 

Kate Lumby, sales agent, auctioneer and principal of Lumby Hampson in Sydney’s Hills District, reveals the performance art of property sales. In this episode we learn about:

• The props used by agents to “sell the dream”
• How she breaks down the barriers between auctioneer and bidder and gets an opening bid
• Different buyer behaviour and the buyers who are their own worst enemy
• How the “elephant” affects agents, vendors and buyers
• Tips for becoming the favourite buyer of both the agent and the vendor and why some people get to buy a property for less money
• How she recognizes buyers who are in “peak buying mode”
• The type of property she refuses to sell
• How an agent’s mindset will impact the sale price
• The research property buyers should do
• How good agents lead a buyer to the negotiation table

This episode reveals all the little details that affect the way property buyers behave.Links: 

Lumby Hampsonhttp://lumbyhampson.com.au/

My Auctioneerhttp://myauctioneer.com.au/

Video - How to set your maximum bid at auction

https://gooddeeds.com.au/auction-tips/how-do-you-set-a-maximum-auction-bid/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.