Team Work…
There is a lot that goes on behind the scenes when you buy a property. As a purchaser, you are not privy to all that happens but lets just say, having the right team behind you can pay dividends.
In general, property purchasers tend to have a few minor bumps along the way but in general they run smooth if the purchaser has a professional team around them.
But what happens when the deal is not a straightforward loan application or property purchase?
This story is not about the negative side but more on what can happen when the right team work together to make a couples dream purchase come to life.
With a few tricks of the trade thrown in…
Now this team does not work in the same office. They are a group of professionals who all know that the job needs to get done and will do almost anything to make that happen.
For the sake of privacy, lets call the purchasers Phillipe and Andrea…
Phillipe and Andrea own a home in Sydney and an investment property in QLD. Due to their fantastic fertility, they have run out of room and need a bigger house.
But like all families looking to upgrade, they went looking for a new home before exploring whether they could actually move.
And of course they found a home and fell in love, especially Andrea…
So off they trot to come see Todd and get some advice on selling their home, buying the new home and getting finance. All the easy stuff…
What made this tricky was that there were other interested parties looking at the house and they hadn’t even spoken to an agent to look to sell their home… not to mention work out whether they had enough money or equity in their home and investment property to make the purchase work.
There were some hurdles in the loan side of things that require them to refinance their QLD loan and increase the loan so we could use the equity in the property for their home as well. Their interest rates were not fantastic so this exercise was also financially beneficial for them as well.
Some of the hurdles in this buy sell plan was that they were buying a home without having sold their own home, which was required for them to be able to settle on their new home.
So we referred them to a conveyancer we regularly use for NSW purchasers and sales. As well as being local to our office, they now how to get the job done, going far and beyond the call of duty.
So what Phillipe and Andrea needed here was to have, not only an agreed price on the purchase, but an extended settlement of 12 weeks. The long settlement gives them time to hopefully sell their home. The properties then need to settle simultaneously so they can move once.
They need to get their home up for sale ASAP as most settlements are a minimum of 6 weeks so with 12 weeks to settle on the purchase, they only have 6 weeks to sell.
After asking me who would be the best person to sell their home, I first asked who the agent was who they purchasing their new home from.
They told me the agent whom I knew well… so I said use him.
Why???
When the same agent is used to buy and sell, they have a vested interest in making both deals come together. He was able to hold off the wolves who were trying to buy the new home as he knew he was getting a new listing if he sold to Phillipe and Andrea. If they didn’t get the new home then they were not going to sell with him.
After negotiating a purchase price, the agent held off from exchanging the contracts, waiting for Phillip and Andrea to get their building and pest inspections done. The agent sold the concept to the vendor that they were going to exchange contracts unconditionally and needed to wait until the inspections were done before they could. Of course they were nervous…
But being a good real estate agent he was able to control the situation. Had there been a separate real estate agent involved in each deal, then their agenda would simply be for the sale or the purchase. With the one agent their agenda was for BOTH the sale and the purchase.
Within 48 hours their home was up for sale and Home Opens arranged…
Oh yeh it wasn’t until now that we had all the info required to start the loan process. Of no fault of our own, we were well behind the eight ball… the pressure was now on us to get the loan approved. And did I mention I was about to board a plane for a two week holiday in Vegas…
Within three weeks they had a buyer on their property but agreed on a price lower than what was expected… you see when time starts to get short and you must sell, the only thing you can do is take a lesser price. One of the downsides of buying before you sell… unfortunately you are not in control of the entire process, but on a positive, you only need to move house once… so I can appreciate the reason why.
This meant we had to change loan amounts again and put us behind another few days…
And until we could have an unconditional loan approval they were unable to officially buy or sell… given their loan was a tricky one, we worked overtime with the assessor to work through the numbers as servicing was borderline.
Both the purchaser of their home was ready to exchange unconditionally and the vendor of their new home was wondering what was happening… the air was thick…
I was communicating with both the real estate agent and Phillipe & Andrea at least twice daily whilst the lender was processing their loan.
This gave the real estate agent all the ammo he needed to keep everybodie’s nerves calm.
And then it happened…
We got the loan approval… and instantly we rang all involved and both contracts exchanged unconditionally simultaneously.
A team of professionals along with constant communication between all involved made this deal a deal…
A few tips:
- if you are going to sell your home and then purchase a new home, the ultimate way is to sell and settle on that deal. Then go rent short term and take your time looking for where you want to live and inspect many houses and get to know what you like. Even now, I still inspect high end dollar properties for sale… for no other reason than to keep my eye on the market but more importantly pinch ideas for our renovations at home.
- If you do sell and buy at the same time, use the same real estate agent but only if they are a good one
- Let them give you their commission rates then negotiate hard, after all they are getting two deals here
- Make sure you have a good conveyancer or email us and we will let you know who we use
- And finally make sure you get wHeregroup to set up your finance… that’s a non negotiable!!!