We are currently experiencing rapidly rising property prices on the Bass Coast and fierce competition for houses is making it harder to buy and sell in the same market, leaving home owners with a sometimes difficult choice.

Do they put their property on the market and try to sell first and run the risk of not finding another home before their settlement or of further price rises? Or buy first, and hope they can sell their existing property quickly and for a good price?

While this dilema is nothing new if you are currently thinking of selling, it will be a strong factor in your decision making process.

Senior research analyst Nicola Powell from Domain says:

"Last year sellers were more inclined to sell before they bought because there was so much encertainty about prices. 

But, if you sell before you purchase what many may now be finding is that the market is running away with them and gaining in price.

In the ideal scenario, your transactions are as close as possible, but that's not always possible."

Here at Inverloch @realty we are seeing some sellers miss their chance to buy back into the same market, that's why the sales strategy you adopt to sell you home is now so critical. 

Understanding your options when it comes to selling is more important than ever. By offering our clients three methods of sale - Private Treaty, Auction and Openn Negotiation we can advise based on your property and circumstances which method will provide you the best outcome based on your situation.

For example if you were to list your home today for $1,000,000 and the market keeps rising at 3% per month and your agent takes 3 months to sell your property, even if they sell it for the asking price you have actually lost a $90,000 market gain! if you were planning to buy a similar home the market price for that will now be $1,090,000.

Best advice in a rising market that we are now experiencing, choose a sales method that is proven to give you not only the best price but also the fastest result.

Selling any property is a big financial transaction, so it’s worth considering using an expert. Even if you have the experience and the resources to ‘go it alone’, doing so can be expensive and extremely time-consuming.

Always check verified reviews and see what others are saying about the agent. Look at Google reviews and search their profile on Rate My Agent. Ask your agent about thier list price to sale ratio.

The hidden cost to you when selling your home is not the agents commission rate but the amount of money the agent reduces off your final selling price during negotiations with buyers! Especially if they have over priced the property to start with!

Good real estate agents sell properties for a living and their wealth of experience can be invaluable. Additionally, using an agent also gives you legal protection. A good agent will:

• Provide a realistic opinion of the value of your property
• Help you decide on the best sales method for your property, be that private treaty, Auction or Openn Negotiation
• Organise, attend and record prosepective buyers at inspections
• Provide access to buyers through their own databases and audiences.
• Expose your property to their social media audience
• Manage all exquiries and handle all negotiations with the single objective of achieving the very best outcome for you.
• Advise and coordinate the marketing of your property with the very best strategies proven to reach the buyer demographic for your home.

10 REASONS PEOPLE CHOOSE US

• We are local business owners. You are not dealing with sales people you are dealing with business owners
• We are a local family business with generational roots in the area
• We communicate face to face, via the phone, text and email to keep you updated and informed at all time. An informed seller can make an informed decision.
• We provide you with marketing campaign reports complete with statistics from the real estate portals and detailed feedback from prospective buyers.
• We have a large engaged audience that has unrivalled reach locally to attract qualified buyers.
• We use traditional and state of the art digital marketing methods to reach prospective buyers for your home.
• We go above and beyond to get our sellers the very best market price
• We are commited to continual training and updating our resources to ensure that your property is always in front of the maximun number of buyers
• We are a leading brand in our area and have a national reach to attract active buyers
• We have an exceptional understanding of the selling process and the local real estate market trends

OUR PROMISE

• We will find the right price in the market
• We will not give it away
• The agent that creates the most competition wins
• It's not where we start it's where we finish

Unfortunately this is still how most people select a real estate agent and it can be a really expensive mistake for homeowners.

Prospective sellers will call all the local real estate agents in to appraise their home and will often select the agent or agency that has promised them the highest price for their home.

It's important to remember however that this is merely an opinion of value. In most cases if the agent is using verified data sources like RPDATA and PRICEFINDER all of the appraised prices should be in a very close range and you should be provided with comprehensive reports to back this up.

If one of the agents has promised you a price much higher than the other agents it can be a very compelling argument and you'll start imagining what you could do with those extra funds.

They will then lock you into a long and exclusive listing agreement meaning that you can't list your property with anyone else.

Over the coming months the agent will request price reduction after price reduction and your home will eventually sell most probably in the price range provided by the other agents when you first set out on your home selling journey.

In the industry it's called "buying the listing" 

We still loose out on at least 50% of the listing opportunities we go in Inverloch sometimes to prices $200,000 over market only to see them reduced in price months down the line to at or below the true market value.

You can see this yourself on realestate.com.au if you search suburb, then sold, where you see "Contact agent" instead of the price - contact them and ask what it sold for and what is was originally listed for.

The hidden cost to you when selling your home is not the agent's commission, rather the amount of money the agent reduces off your selling price during negotiations with buyers. Especially if they have overpriced the listing to start with! 

A great article on selecting the right marketing price for your property can be found HERE

We don't believe a shop front is a necessity for our business. The proof is in the pudding as it were, check out all the properties we have sold for above market results without a shop front HERE

According to the latest statistics, there is a 96% chance a buyer will look at an online source before they buy a home. People aren't walking into offices anymore.

Mat Steinwade one of Australia's most prolific real estate agents agrees. In a recent blog, he told his subscribers that the internet has taken the place of the window display.

"Gone are the days when a buyer will walk around from real estate office to real estate office and register their name" he blogged on matsteinwade.com. "Buyers don't even want to go into an office at all. They want to look on the internet or go to an open home. Technology has made it very easy for buyers to sit in their home and search through all properties available, from all agents".

We also don't need to pass the cost of an office and overheads onto our home sellers meaing we are able to offer them more, for less.

Learn more about our business model HERE

A real estate commission is a percentage of the final selling price that goes to your agent after your home sells. If you live in South Gippsland or the Bass Coast you can expect to pay on average between 2-3%.

The cost of selling a home can be very different depending on the area you live. Typically real estate commisions for rural properties can be higher due to the size and time required to carry out inspections.

You can use the "Cost of Selling A House In Victoria calculator " to give you a better idea.

To give yourself the best chance of selling your home for a great market price means making sure as many people as possible know it's for sale. In todays day and age that should include following:

• Professional Photography
• Professional Videography
• Floor & Site Plans
• 3d Tour
• Copywriting
• Detailed signboard
• Targeted Social Media Campaign
• Real Estate Portal Listings

Marketing costs vary from agency to agency but should land somewhere between $500 - $3000 locally.

Status quo and most agents say that when you sell your house, you should pay a few thousand dollars for a premier listing on the portals. But what if you could keep that money in your own pocket instead?

We can run a pre-market listing campaign through our media arm www.inverloch3996.com and potentially find the buyer for your home at a fraction of the cost of listing on the portals.

We'll let you into another industry secret - most people in Australia (upwards of 90%) are viewing realestate.com.au on a mobile device and are searching by "date listed" or "price". We bet you do this too when you are looking. This makes the $2000 feature advert your agent just charged you for largely irrelevant - but does a great job of promoting the agent.

You can target listing ads to the same people actively searching the portals while they’re on other websites. After all, people spend a mere 10 minutes scrolling the portals — but they spend ten times that on social media, every day.

Should you be on the portals - 100% yes. Should you be spending quite as much on the ad - probably not.

Advertise only on the portals, and you’re missing buyers 98%* of the time they’re online.

*According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Learn  How We Reach More Homebuyers Online

“While you want to spend time and money on creating your home to live in, it can be done wisely with future planning of a sale too,” says Nicole Jacobs, author of SOLD! How to Buy and Sell Your Home With Real Confidence, and regular expert on TV renovation show The Block. “It really comes down to what is the price point of the home. What buyers expect and what they will pay for in a $500,000 apartment will be very different to a home worth more than $2 million.”

It's really important to plan your spending carefully and you don't want to over capitalise by spending too much on major improvements that buyers might not want. 

Find out our top recommended updates and learn How To Sell Your Home For More

Here our out top 5 home improvements that won't get you your money back according to Nicole Jacobs, Author of SOLD and regular expert on TV Renovation Show "The Block"

1. Swimming Pool

Pools are great in summer, but the expense of installation and constant maintenance may not be worth it. “It is $100,000 you don’t need to spend because at the end of the day you may not get $100,000 on the other end,” says Nicole. 

2. Overfitting

Don’t go overboard with fancy fittings that few will appreciate when you can pay a fraction of the cost for something that looks just as good, says Nicole. “I remember seeing a house in Brighton once and they had flown in tiles from Italy and they were nice but nothing amazing,” she says. “I knew the agent was doing his best to sell the house with all these bespoke finishes but the broader market won’t appreciate them.” Also, refrain from adding sinks to a butler’s pantry, hyper-expensive tapware or bidets. 

3. Butlers Pantry

These kitchen offshoots can have a little ‘wow’ factor, but are often built at the expense of space for other rooms, and for little value. “I don’t think a seller gets a lot of return for it. One client built one and when I saw it I thought ‘why did you do that?They made the kitchen and living areas smaller to just hide away more food with two cupboard doors.” 

4. Hardwiring

Homes are becoming smarter and older-style wired systems are becoming rapidly outdated thanks to the availability and popularity of inexpensive wireless systems, says Nicole. “Buyers will be coming with their own Google Home or Alexas,” she says. “Or you can always build it in and leave it there for the new owners.”  

5. Saunas

This is not Scandinavia. Is there a need for a sauna outside a gym or bathhouse? I've seen two in multi-million-dollar properties in Melbourne’s inner west that fit their luxe stylings but it’s such a niche idea that many buyers would be chopping up the wood for the firepit in winter instead. 

Learn 101 ways to improve your homes value without breaking the bank

When two, three or even more people want to buy the same property - they are encouraged to compete for it. This pushes up the price and ensures you are getting the best possible price on the day. Our job is to create maximum competition among interested buyers.

We will recommend the method we believe will achieve the best price, however ultimately, you the vendor, have the power to choose the method which you feel most suits you.

When selling a property, we have three primary methods of sale choices - Private Treaty,  Auction and Openn Negotiation.

In the digital age, buyers become aware of a new listing very quickly; Sometimes within just hours of the listing. This means that a wave of all buyers that are ‘in-the-market’ can often hit within the first one to two weeks.

However, statistics indicate that once a buyer ‘discards’ a property, they rarely reconsider it!

This is why it can be an advantage to market a property without a price, or price it correctly at the start of a campaign. Otherwise, you run the risk of your property ‘stalling’; and being dismissed in the buyer’s mind. This can lead to a lengthy time on the market, and ultimately a lower sale price.

Check out: Comparing Sales Methods

We believe the process of selling property should be rewarding - less guessing, more transparency, and lots of excitement. That’s why we have pioneered the use of Openn Negotiation in the region.

Openn Negotiation is an online platform and app that allows qualified buyers to openly negotiate on price with the advantage of knowing exactly how many real competing buyers there are.

Being able to see the bids in real time means;

• more confidence in the sale value of your property and it reaching the maximum market value
• Making sure your agent does not leave any money on the table
• Feeling comfortable your agent has achieved the best possible price for you.
• Openn Negotiation encourages buyer participation. More competition helps to push the price of your property up.

Top 10 Reasons Why Openn Negotiation Could Be Right For YOU

1. YOUR BEST CHANCE TO GET A GREAT PRICE

An Openn Negotiation has a countdown timer - so interested buyers need to get qualified ASAP if they want a chance to purchase your property. More competition helps to push the price up.

2. OPENN NEGOTIATION ENCOURAGES BUYERS

TO BID

Buyers like Openn Negotiation because they can start at a comfortable level and follow the price up to your reserve, as the competition builds. The more buyers, the more competition, the better chance of realising your best result.

3. REAL TIME FEEDBACK

All buyers are pre-contracted and approved by you, meaning you have a real-time indication of how many qualified buyers are placing leaglly-binding bids, from early as day one.

4. YOU WON’T LET YOUR BEST OFFER WALK OUT

THE DOOR

In real estate you’ll often hear “your first offer will be your best offer”. With Openn you can test this by being able to capture the first buyer, rather than risk them walking away.

5. OPENN CAPTURES A WIDE BUYER POOL

With Openn Negotiation, buyers can be anywhere in the world and aren’t locked in to specific conditions. They can submit their settlement date, deposit and even finance conditions for your approval from the start. This flexibility allows more buyers to participate.

6. BUYERS CAN TRUST IT

Buyers under competition always pay more. By competing with other buyers, rather than haggling with an agent, they know what price they need to beat if they really want to purchase your home.

7. LESS DAYS ON MARKET

The facts indicate the longer your property is on the market, the lesser price you will achieve. Openn Negotiation allows the sales process to be conducted over a short and defined time, providing certainty and avoiding endless open homes and disappointments.

8. AGENT SUPPORT

During your Openn Negotiation, you work closely with your chosen qualified real estate agent, who controls the process to reach the best possible outcome with you.

9. COST-EFFECTIVE

When selling your property through Openn Negotiation you get full access to the technology platform via your smartphone or computer, so you can check your property’s progress at any time, from anywhere.

10. GET THE RIGHT PRICE

Openn Negotiation avoids the possibility of over or underpricing. By letting the buyers start the bidding you don’t run the risk of scaring people away.

Learn how this iconic Inverloch beach shack achieved an amazing market result in just 8 days

Overpricing your home remains one of the BIGGEST mistakes you can make when selling. We understand and it's human nature to think our homes are sometimes worth more than they actually are.

Pricing a home for sale properly is the most critical part of any real estate equation.

One of worst mistakes you can make when selling your home is choosing your agent based on the suggested list price they give you for your property. Don't get suckered into to the oldest trick in the book. 

You may be thinking, why would a real estate agent tell me an unrealistic price that they won't be able to sell for?

Here are a few reasons:

• So you'll sign a long and exclusive listing agreement with them, because they can't beat out a good real estate agent otherwise.
• They are using your home as an advertising vehicle for their business to pick up buyer clients they'll take from your overpriced home to a lower priced home. 
• They want their sign in your yard advertising their business for the next 6-12 months (their advertising signs will just be advertising their brand and business not your home).

Your high expectations will be encouraged to get your listing, only to tell you much later, after the ideal selling timeframe where you could of achieved the maximum market price has passed - that your price must be reduced to sell.

If this has happenend to you we'd encourage you to reach out and speak to us, we'd love to show you another way.

When speaking to agents ask them about their list price to selling price ratio - get it in writing. Most importanly check out their verified reviews on Google and Rate My Agent. 

In Inverloch, it’s no wonder people traditionally sell their homes in summer: everything’s in bloom, brighter and looks great. But talk to real estate agents and drill down on sales results, and you’ll find that the best season to sell your particular property isn’t necessarily the summer.

The right season depends on a huge variety of factors, including the property itself, its surroundings and area you live in. For example, are you in a tourist spot? A beach suburb? Or are there events on at certain times of the year that turn your normally quiet street or suburb into a car park?

There can also be a huge advantage in marketing your home during traditionally quiet periods – winter, for example, or from mid-January into February, when other sellers are still on holidays. With fewer properties to choose from, more of the buyers will get to see your place.

Regardless of the time of year you decide to sell, there are some absolute must-dos

Some properties, such as holiday houses by the coast or river and elevated properties that get cool breezes, particularly lend themselves to being sold in summer. Likewise, homes that are generally quite dark and cold in winter. If a property has a lot of unshaded, west-facing windows and gets particularly hot in the afternoon, it may be worth holding inspections only in the mornings, or you may want to consider selling in a different season. If you do need to cool down a property, try to do so a few hours before any inspections so that potential buyers will feel very comfortable as they look through. And this season, when looking at accents such as cushions and throws, opt for cooler blues and greens.