August letter
Hi from Brad Shipway,
As I write this month’s letter, I am excited as it’s based on two very similar situations we have experienced recently. When a homeowner starts thinking about selling their property, they will often get 2-3 different agents to present their price expectations, commission, and marketing packages. All of these can vary significantly. As humans we all want to save money where we can and sellers will quite often be tempted to go with the agent with either the lowest commission, the cheapest marketing package, or the agent promising you the highest price.
So… what is your agent really costing you?
In July of this year, we can present below two cases:
93 Macquarie Cct
From the 25th March until the 29th of June 2019, this beautiful property was on the market with another agency for approx. 100 days. The pricing strategy started at “Offers Above $489,000” and then adjusted to “Offers Above $469,000”, followed by No price “For Sale” before finally “Offers Above $459,000”. I was advised by the owners on average they were getting less than 2-3 groups at each open. The highest offer that had been presented to them was $440,000 which was later moved up to $450,000 when the sellers decided to relinquish the property from the previous agency. The owners had spent around $1000 for their marketing package and it was NOT a Premiere listing on www.realestate.com.au
The owners reached out to us, they had since moved out of the property, and as it was empty, straight away we gave a strong recommendation the property should be fully and professional staged and styled. We advised the owners to run our full marketing package with twilight photo shoot and a Premiere realestate.com.au advert. The owners were investing just over $5000 in marketing, in addition to the $1000 for the previous agent’s marketing package, which is obviously quite a lot of money and we don’t ask for it lightly. In less than 4 days, styling was done, photos were taken, and we were back on the market approx a week after the 8th of July. Our first open home saw 11 groups through the property and we SOLD it for $470,000 with multiple offers after the first open home!! As normal we continue to run open homes while the contract was still going through its conditional stage and at the next two open homes we had an additional 17 groups through the property with further interest if there were any reason the current buyer couldn’t proceed with their contract.
We can’t truly calculate the cost of being on the market for 100 days with the other agent, but as the owners had moved into a new property, the mortgage repayments alone would certainly have added up significantly while the property was empty. In this case, not only did the property sell for $20,000 more than highest offer the previous agent presented ($15,000 after the extra marketing investment), but also in around 1/10th of the time.
72 Macquarie Cct
At the start of 2019, this amazing property was unsold by another agency after being on the market for 76 days. The pricing strategy started with “For Sale By Negotiation” followed by “Offers Above $535,000”. With no offers even close enough to consider and the negativity of not finding a buyer that loved their home as much as they did, the owners chose to take the property off the market and have a few months break as they were exhausted from the weekly open homes.
In June, the owners contacted us and we sat down and presented our strategy to them. Their taste in furniture was excellently suited to the home so we advised them how to get the home ready to sell. They believed in our strategy and had seen our results, so after further discussion, they signed on with us, choosing to invest $2500 in marketing including a social media video marketing strategy.
We went back on the market at the start of July and priced it higher at “Offers Above $539,000”! At the first open home we had 12 groups of buyers and the property was sold for $538,000! Not only were the sellers happy with the result, they were even happier with the fact that they did not need to continue to keep the house “perfect” for open homes with a newborn baby.
We wanted to share this story as we know that as potential sellers it is sometimes hard to navigate in the world of real estate and real estate agents and it is often natural human instinct to want to try to save as much up-front “cost” as possible as opposed to investing to get a quicker and much better result. I hope these very recent case studies help show that investing wisely in your marketing with the right agent and with the pricing strategy in the current market makes all the difference in the world.
If you would like this newsletter emailed directly to you, sign up below.