My wife and I recently purchased an investment property that we will ultimately downsize into upon retirement.
I have bought and sold many properties over our lifetime. I am a Chartered Accountant who owns and operates his own business and been successful in my career. I understand business and negotiation of business transactions.
This was the first time we have contracted a Buyers Advocate to assist with a property acquisition. Why did we do this and why Sally? Many people would consider that I could have purchased the property myself and at the end of the day isn’t it just the buyer with the deepest pocket who buys the property?
Sally is a professional who has worked in the Real estate industry for a long time. She understands the property market and how Agents work. I also found her to be genuinely interested and invested in me, my family and our future requirements. Sally is approachable, confident and she is honest in her dealings with you. She calls it as she sees it!
Sally did not locate our property for us, although I have no doubt that she would be able to readily source properties if that was her brief, but we contracted her to negotiate the purchase on our behalf. Her fee was success based and very reasonable relative to the size of the transaction.
The key benefits that we achieved were:
Independent assessment of the proposed property purchase including review of the property (potential buyer issues) and independent market assessment - when you are emotionally invested issues can be overlooked;
Independent assessment of the market value of our current property holdings;
All dealings with the vendor’s agent and enquiries on the property were handled by Sally. By utilizing Sally we gave away no competitive advantage through emotion or interest in the property to the Vendor’s Agent;
During the selling period:
Sally was in constant contact with the vendor agent building a strong rapport with them. We were able to ascertain a good understanding of our competition to buy the property;
Sally identified that the sale was going to auction and there was no point in making a pre auction offer on the property that would only be rejected;
Prior to the auction Sally had negotiated a longer settlement in our favour, identified the price that the property would go on the market at the auction and we had discussed in detail the maximum prices we were prepared to pay and our strategy for bidding;
We had a post auction alternative property purchase strategy in place in the event that we were unsuccessful at the auction;
Sally’s confident bidding at the auction ensured our success. The price paid ultimately was at the top of our range but had I undertaken the bidding myself (or through a friend) the visuals of the auction may not have resulted in our success. Sally was brilliant at the auction including being on first name terms with the Auctioneer – it was perceived that we were going to pay whatever it took - which was not the case!
If you have a legal matter you consult a lawyer; a medical matter you consult a doctor; build a house you use a builder qualified to build the house. So when you buy a property, probably the biggest purchase of your life, you should get the best possible advice to guide you through the process. We did and we can’t recommend Sally highly enough!