anyone who brought a house in VIC this year?

[Cassius2]

hi salsa!

we bought a house 2 months ago after almost 12 months. it was a hard and emotional slog as we were FHB with a definite limit.

home price guide com au is a great place to see what properties sold for in your area in the last week. it also gives you prices for record sales of the year and previous years...good way to gauge how far it can go up.

we were looking brunswick/northcote area and basically if they advertised say 400-450, that ALWAYS meant AT LEAST 500. at one stage in the beginning of the year DH and I went to 20+ auctions and they all sold roughly 100k above the advertised price.

when making offers on houses new to the market, try to come up with a figure that a) you are willing to pay for that property and b) a figure that is attractive enough for the owner to place it on the market (ie pull out of an auction...not too easy as melbournians love an auction!). ALSO, if making an offer try to do it on a Friday just before close of business, that way it reduces the chance of other people getting organised in time to also place an offer (sounds cruel, and it is but it's the done thing).

if it is a property that has sat there for more than 28 days at private sale, then usually the vendor is more flexible and you can work your way up from a lower offer...

if it has been passed in at auction and a reserve price is set then i recommend making an offer that just tips over it. we had to wear the brunt of missing out on a property that had a bid only $500 above the reserve (we bid just under). also good to remember that just because it is private sale does not mean that you have exclusive right to the vendor, others may come in and pull the rug from under you...we had this happen soo many times.

in our case after attending countless auctions and watching delapidated junkie house after junkie house sell for 100ks of dollars more than the advertised price we landed an opportunity with a local RE agency. in this case, the fact that they were crapulent at advertising etc worked in our favour, no one was impressed by the online images and we took advantage (on a whim) and checked the place out, only to find that it was really lovely! we waited a couple of weeks before making an offer as the price was $1000 out of our maximum (it was a private sale) and we were def not going to go over. during this time we realised that there were no other potential buyers so we rather cheekily on a late friday evening put in an offer 30K less than the asking price and told the RE agent that we needed an answer that night by the vendor as we were going to auction the following morning (this was no lie luckily!). we got a call a couple of hours later with the news they accepted.

[MamaPan]

i get chills reading your story clare!

[Cassius2]

i get chills reading your story clare!

ha ha! i break out in a cold sweat just thinking about it lol!

[Lulu]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Cass, that's awesome.

I totally agree with the crapulent advertising thing. I got both my houses before the For Sale sign went up...

[Salsa]

Thanks again for all the advise

Im getting a much better idea of what to expect and what to do - but I was wondering, if we want to make an offer on a property, what sort of things is it advisable to put into the offer - such as a building inspection? Finance? Is there some sort of thing you can put to find out what the councils plans and permits are for that home or street?
Perhaps we should be looking for a lawyer now? Or should we do that once we have made the offer?

Im nervous, and just wanting to make sure we do this right and dont get ourselves in trouble.

[Astrid]

Helps to know who you will be using for conveyencing before putting in an offer. Putting in an offer subject to anything is kind of tricky. When we sold in Melbourne last year we refused to consider any offers subject to any conditions, we needed a clean sale. Also our agent was not interested in dealing with conditions, he even managed to get the cooling off period waved. So anyone who was interested had to do their building inspections prior to submitting an offer and their finance sorted. Saying that though, if someone did come to us with something like a longer settlement etc we would have considered it for more money (yes we were ruthless and it paid off for us).

[Cassius2]

It's best to get a conveyancer/lawyer organised before you put in an offer as you need to provide those details to many agencies when you put the offer in (many require you to actually fill in the contract (section 32).

i would not recommend any conditions. clean sale is the pretty much the only thing vendors are after, especially now with banks tightening belts and the economy a bit sludgy.

In order to put in an offer on a house, a Section 32 needs to have been drawn up by the RE agent (this is a contract that states all the dimensions, goods and chattels of the house and also the road planning and suburb planning of the local council (so you can see if it is proposed to have a massive highway put through it...we saw this on one place we were very keen on...it was going to lose part of its front yard to a road ). i recommend getting a copy of this PRIOR to making any offer and passing it onto your lawyer for a quick check. in all honesty, these are all fairly standard documents, and the pages you want to really look for are the ones that concern flooding, roads and development overlays. if they are not there, ask the RE agent...could smell a rat LOL!

my advice is to get your inspections done beforehand (also, highly recommend you weigh up the pros and cons of doing building inspections for every house, although nice to do, at $500 a pop it can be unrealistic if you end up needing to bid on a bazillion houses). unless of course you are confident that you are in with a really good chance, OR that the house is your dream 'doer-upper' and you are willing to sacrifice a few quid to get an idea of costings. sorry that was a ramble!

when you are putting in an offer it is always a good idea to get the RE agent to understand that you are willing to accommodate the vendor (even if just for show ITMS), so for example, you can say that you are flexible on the settlement date (which is a good possibility if you are renting as only 28 days notice is required for example). sometimes this is enough to get you over the line. (so say for example, if the vendor has a 60 day settlement let the RE agent know that if they want a shorter or longer settlement that is fine by you). it helped us that's for sure, as the vendor had bought elsewhere and it was the long settlement that also turned ppl off)

[Salsa]

Thanks Cassius & Astrid.

I know it would be really in our favour to have no conditions but I saw a lawyer today who said we do need to put 2 conditions - finance and his sighting of the contract and sec 32. I would love to not put finance as a condition, but we will to protect ourselves and if it means we loose a place because of it - well, thats just the way it goes. ( we dont have any written pre approval from a lender yet - though we are confident of what we will be able to borrow up to based on what the mortgage broker tells us).
I would like to get builders reports but I guess we will just make that decision based on the house and if we think its might be hiding anything.
And as we are renting we are very flexible as to when settlement will be so we do have that in our favour and will make sure they know that!

[Emma1979]

haven't read all the respones but we bought this year, house was advertised at $429K and we got it for $400K..... we started with an offer of about $380K from memory...... this was a few months ago and not sure what it is like now, but it was definitely a buyer's market then.

[Salsa]

Good news emma - I kept thinking that its good for vendors with all the competition of people needing houses, but maybe the balls more in our court than I realise. It does seem that the area we are looking in house sell very fast though.
I`m pleased you got you home for good price. What area?

Divvy, the lawyer said we could make an offer on the weekend if we felt so inspired! and then I would need to see him first thing Monday. So I assume he means we can go ahead and sign a contract before he sights it, since we will be puttin the condition of him approving it all anyway? He mentioned something about 3 days...? We wouldnt make an offer with the intention of trying to get out of it a few days later, but he said we have a bit of time to change our minds if we need/want...?
Feeling like there is alot of competition is what makes me think we should put an offer in straight away if we like something, but perhaps Im being overly anxious?

[Astrid]

He mentioned something about 3 days...? We wouldnt make an offer with the intention of trying to get out of it a few days later, but he said we have a bit of time to change our minds if we need/want...?

That is the cooling off period, from memory it is 3 business days, so if you made an offer on a Saturday you would have until close of business Wednesday. You can waive the cooling off period if your lawyer has seen the sec32 prior to your offer. Some people do use the cooling off period to work out finances etc, but it is really cutting it fine, so it is really taking a risk. Have to admit when we sold that we would have accepted $5k less just to have an offer with the cooling off period waived. It was the most nerve racking days we have had in our life as they buyer did organise an extra inspection in that time and we feared that she would pull out. We had many other offers, one very close to hers, but there was no guarantee that they would still be around.