Welcome to the Selling Southport Podcast. I'm Andrew Wright, principal of Professional Southport since 2008. Real estate isn't just my career, it's my passion with decades of experience. I know what it takes to succeed in the property market. Especially here in Southport, whether you're looking to buy, sell, lease, or invest, you can count on me and my team to deliver strategies that maximize your returns.

Let's dive into today's episode and get you one step closer to your property goals.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Selling Southport. Now, if you've been attending open Homes or searching for a property around Southport, today's episode is going to be extremely helpful for you. Buying property is a big decision, and sometimes it's easy to focus on how a home feels, but there are also a number of practical things smart buyers pay attention to before making an offer.

So today I'm here again with Andrew Wright, principal of Professional Southport Andrew's been selling property in this area for over 20 years and has worked with hundreds of buyers and sellers across Southport and the surrounding suburbs. Andrew, today we're going to walk through something really useful, the things experienced buyers tend to check before they make an offer on a property and things that maybe sometimes inexperienced buyers don't know.

Andrew, when buyers walk into a property, it's easy to focus on how the home feels, and tho those, you know, emotions that go on, but what do you think buyers sometimes overlook during inspections?

Well, I think it's important to probably be aware of what good real estate agents will do for the sellers, because typically, I'll just give a few example, which the buyers might benefit, benefit from.

If I'm marketing a waterfront house, I'm gonna be telling the owners to do the open homes when it's high tide. Because the water looks better, so go and have a look at the place when it's low tide. If it's a west facing house, I'm generally going to tell my clients to do an open home early in the morning or at midday.

What you should probably do if you're a buyer is check it out late afternoon when the sun's blaring into the property. Okay? If the house is located close to a school, I'm probably doing open homes on the weekends, and if it's a private inspection during the week. It's gonna be at lunchtime. You probably want to drive around to that house at nine o'clock in the morning or 3:00 PM at the school pickup times and just see how noisy and busy it is on the road.

I absolutely love this. You, you, I've been doing. Real estate podcast for a while, and I've never heard anyone say that, that you, every agent is doing the absolute best as they should by their seller. But you are seeing and, and being shown everything in the, in the perfect conditions, aren't you? So my

job is, is to get the best price for the seller.

So just be aware of the, the tricks if you are, uh, looking to buy something,

I absolutely love that. Now a home can look. Because a home can look fantastic on inspection date, but experienced buyers are always looking a little bit deeper, aren't they?

Well, once again, it's very important to know when I'm working for a seller that quite often I'll tell, uh, the seller of a property to put in some brand new carpets to paint the place.

It's very, very cheap to do that, but it gives you the buyers an emotional. Feeling when they walk into a property, not only does it look good, but it actually smells good when they walk in there. Oh, it smells like brand new. And that sort of emotion can generally lead to buyers paying too much for properties, and they might not be looking at the more important structural issues behind the wall.

And that's why building and pest inspections are so important. So I think the best answer to that question, Adam, would be for bias to make sure they don't skip. A building and pest inspection because you never know if there's termites in the war or there's electrical wiring that doesn't comply to the modern building standards that you might have to spend a lot of money replacing

later.

Just on that, a lot of, um, sellers will already have a building and pest inspection done, um, prior to open homes, et cetera. Should a buyer always get their own independent one done anyway?

There's no right or wrong answer to that. I would say the majority of houses, sellers don't get paid for a building in pest inspection before unless it's going to auction.

Generally, they'll pay for a building in pest inspection because a auction marketing campaign is only three or four weeks, and buyers may not have the time to prepare one. So having that building and pest inspection report there may give a couple of extra buyers the confidence to stick their hand up.

And registered a bid at an auction, which can improve the selling price. The majority of times properties are marketed with a price probably more than 50% of the time. There won't be a building in pest inspection available, but I would say for the. Amount of $500, it probably pays to get your own building and pest inspection done.

For sure. For sure. Alright. Something I think, um, a lot of buyers wouldn't think about would be the street and the surroundings. They turn up, they look at the house, they look at the outside, they look at the backyard. They're even looking for, you know, the structural things. But what's important about the, the street and surroundings to check out.

Well, I mentioned, uh, just before about the high tide, low tide west facing houses and school zones. I guess, um, if you're an owner occupier, you probably wanna make sure that where you are buying is actually in the right catchment zone. If you're intending to have kids, uh, go to that particular school, they've actually gotta be in the catchment zone.

If it's, um, uh, I've had many, many people come and tell me that, oh, we bought for an example an apartment, a three bedroom apartment, Andrew, and after we bought it, we went to try and find the second car park and there wasn't one. So make sure that if you're buying an apartment, check out how many car parks there are.

I've had buyers come to me later and saying, oh, Andrew, we bought this property up the road and we didn't realize there was no storage. Because we had some friends in the building that had a big storage cage, but we found out later that when we bought this apartment, we didn't actually have a storage cage.

So make sure you do your due diligence when you're buying the property.

Okay, so when we're talking about these seven, number one is street and surroundings. Now number two, and you have touched on this already, but the condition of the home,

don't, don't, don't guess it. Get a building and pest inspector.

Give it, lay it, lay down that, uh, responsibility to the experts. Look, I, I've bought buildings before myself personally that I didn't, I made a mistake once. I didn't get a building in pest and it was for the termites. I've made that mistake.

Yeah,

that don't make that

a mistake. Sure. Number three, layout and Liv livability What to buyers overlook?

Well, I, I think what I just mentioned there, make sure that, you know, you don't actually look for storage in a property when you go to an open home. 'cause you're not in the process of unpacking big trucks full of stuff. But you've really gotta make sure that it suits. The amount of furniture you have of it, you know, even seeing people try and move in and their, uh, big giant lounge doesn't fit in the lounge room.

So it is important when you go to an open home, bring a measuring tape and make sure that your current furniture fits in. How many of those old properties, even the new ones, do you find that have a little tiny, skinny area for a fridge? Like, it doesn't even fit a double door fridge, so make sure you do the numbers,

check all that.

I mean, even space in a, in a, in a garage next to next to your cars and at the, at the end, a lot of places don't have much there, so That's right. Look at that as well. Number four, the land and outdoor areas, so things like drainage, privacy, neighboring properties.

Yeah, well, look, I, I think it's, uh, probably important.

First of all, when you're looking at, uh, a detached dwelling, a duplex or a house, they actually know what the zoning of the property is. So, for example, is there potential down the track to add value with a granny flat? Is there enough land? Most, uh, councils require a certain amount of square meterage for you to able to build a second dwelling.

And if it hasn't got that, well then you can't do it. So it's important to know what the zoning is. Know whether you can add a second dwelling, know which way the land slopes, particularly if the property is below the road and the water might flow from the road down to your property. It's usually preferable.

Preferable for the property to be above the road level so that the water flows down to the road.

Now I'm gonna be cheeky here and give you a little plug, because that's something you know a lot about. Yes. 'cause you do another podcast. It's the Andrew Wright Property podcast. If you're interested in property investment, www.andrewwrightproperty.com au for another time.

But, uh, that is something, I'm glad you brought that up because something you know. Backwards. Yes. Okay. Number five. Body corporate. If you're looking at units or townhouses or, you know, even, uh, something in a, in a high rise.

Yeah. The first, first thing you need to know, obviously, which is, uh, commonly not missed by buyers.

Most buyers will wanna know how much of the weekly body corporate fees, so generally they're paid quarterly, but. The agent should know, be able to break that down by dividing it by 13 and give you a weekly price. But it's very, very important that you actually get your lawyer to check the minutes of previous body corporate meetings to see if there's any one-off levies coming up.

Because quite often there might be a one-off hit which prompts a seller to sell. I don't wanna pay that big hit because I was thinking of selling anyway. So let's sell now. And uh, the new buyer in their first year of ownership gets hit with a big one off levee. Uh, it might be to paint the outside of a building or whatever, but, um, just be careful of that.

And also be careful of how much is in the sinking fund. So some buildings have $2 million in a sinking fund. Uh, others might be running on empty or even negative, in which case, once again, they're gonna have to ask for special further contributions to top up those sinking funds.

I, you know what, Andrew, I've got, uh, firsthand experience of that.

My partner didn't. Find that out. Didn't ask. Didn't know to ask.

Yeah.

Moved into a, uh, unit in, um, in bigger waters. Mm. Was asked for 10 grand. Yeah. Three weeks after moving in. The sinking fund had literally nothing in it.

I've got a feeling that the seller would've known that. Um, Adam, one other thing on that, on that note with the body corporate, Adam, it's very, very important for bias to know is that when there are new developments coming up.

Yeah, the body corporate is set up by the developer who's building that building and is gonna sell it at a profit. So the developer always keeps the initial body corporate fees very low. Oh, it's only $50 a week body corporate. Well, let me tell you. Three or four years down the track that's gonna go up.

They keep the body corporate fees low so they can sell their apartments at a

premium, at the, at the start. Great advice. Alright, number six, rental and investment potential.

Well, I, I think, uh, most people, um, if you've got a, um, tenant in place there, you'll know what the weekly rent is. But it's probably a good idea to ask the agent for a current rental appraisal, if not the selling agent, because a selling agent can.

Slightly alter what he thinks might be a fair rental, just to try and get a sale. Ask another experienced property manager in the area, what that property might rent for. So you have a rental appraisal. Ask what vacancy rates are in the area and as far as investment potential for a property goes. Also, if it's a freestanding dwelling, as I mentioned before, know if that land is zoned for one dwelling or multiple dwellings.

Has it got a good street frontage and can it be subdivided or can you build an extra granny flat on it down the track?

Perfect. Last one, number seven, future value potential. What should buyers be looking at that could effectively give them an indication of what the, the future value potential is?

Well, I think the most important thing from a long-term perspective is how much land content is in the building, because typically.

Land depreciates and buildings depreciate. So that's probably the most important thing. But you can always remember, you can always renovate a house or an apartment, but you can't change the location. So as far as the location goes, make sure you, you're in somewhere where there's going to be population growth and where there's going to be multiple different types of employment available in the area.

Perfect. Can you give me, just to wrap up, can you gimme the top three questions a buyer should ask an agent when they're in an open home, when they're starting to get a bit of a feel as they're walking through. Hmm. This might be one I'm, I'm seriously interested in.

Look, the number one question that I hardly ever get asked.

If you're serious, if you've made a decision that you wanna buy a property, if you're an emotional owner, occupier. Price doesn't matter as much, but if you're an investor, you should be very, very fussy on price. But the question that I never get asked, which blows me away, is what price and what terms do I need to offer right now to the owner to get this deal done?

So many people, people just put in an offer and try and negotiate, but if someone actually ask me that question, I'd tell them what I think the owner will take now, and it probably lead to a better negotiation. That would be the number one question. Number two around that probably is Andrew, what offers have you presented already to the owner?

And number three is what terms are the sellers looking for? Do they want a quick settlement or are they happy to have a delayed settlement? Particularly when there's a lease involved? And it might not suit you right now to buy the property, if there's a long term lease, you might wanna defer the settlement.

Andrew, thanks so much. This, uh, this advice really is absolute gold for anyone who, um, is, is buying a property. So I really appreciate your, your time today. I mean, buying a property is a very big decision, so taking a bit of time to look. Pass the service and ask the right questions can absolutely make a big difference.

So thanks again to listening to us on Selling Southward. Please do subscribe so you don't miss, uh, any episodes. Have a look back. There's a whole catalog of episodes there with some absolutely fantastic advice from Andrew on all sorts of different things, full episodes on building and pest, everything we've touched on today.

There's. There's almost a full episode on, so do go back and have a listen to those. And, uh, look, if you know anyone else, uh, buying or selling at the moment, um. Share the episode. Send it over to her, Andrew, thanks once again. Thanks, Adam.

Thanks for listening to the Selling Southport podcast. I hope today's episode has given you some valuable insights and practical advice on the local real estate market.

Whether you're looking to buy, sell, lease, or invest, I'm here to share my extensive experience and guide you every step of the way. If you have any questions or want to discuss your next property move, don't hesitate to reach out. Your success is my priority. Stay tuned for more expert tips and updates on the Southport property scene.