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 and welcome back to another episode of Selling Southport. If you've ever sold a home before, you'll know that one of the most nerve wracking parts of the process is waiting to hear what buyers think. Just after you've had your open home, you might hear things like, oh, look, I like the property, but I thought the price was a bit high.

Or, look, I'm still just looking. Well, sometimes you hear nothing at all. Well, today we're gonna talk about what buyer feedback really means and how experienced agents use that information to guide their sales strategy. Joining me again is Andrew Wright from Professional Southport, who has been selling res real estate in the Southport and local area for over 20 years.

Andrew Sellers can sometimes get nervous when they hear feedback from buyers, but in reality, feedback is actually incredibly valuable, isn't it?

It is incredibly valuable. So the role of an agent there is to actually verify the feedback the buyers are given. So there's a bit of a saying in the industry as an agent, that buyers are liars, right?

'cause their natural desire is to try and get the property for the cheapest price possible. And they think by providing negative feedback, that they may be able to somehow influence the seller's expectation of price. So. I can give you many examples where buyers over the years have given me feedback on a property, and whilst I've trusted them, I always verify the information before I give it to a seller.

An example of that might be, oh, the house down the road is on the exact same size block of land, and it sold for 50 grand less Andrew. So before I give that feedback to the seller, I'll go back and look on the computer. And then I'll see, okay, well that house didn't have a swimming pool. This house has got a swimming pool.

Yes, it's the same size house, built for the same, build the same block of land, but this one's got a hundred grand swimming pool. Another example might be, oh, that house down the road sold for 50 grand less, but it slopes down from the road. Whereas this one's on the other side of the road, it's elevated.

You get beautiful breezes on the balcony. You have views that you don't get on that. Property that's slope sloping down below the road, and it may well be that this house is a double story house, and the house that sold down the road is a single story house. And the construction cost of a single level dwelling is a lot lower than the cost to build a double story dwelling.

Makes sense. A lot of things that, that, that come into it that you're not necessarily seeing on the, on the surface. Look, one of the most common comments sellers here from buyers is that the property, they like it, but you know, the, the price feels a bit higher. And you just explained that's quite common 'cause they're trying to, um, you know, they're trying to get, get the best possible price.

But look, that can mean a lot of things, can't it? Can you break that down?

Well, the, it's, there's, there's many answers to that, but I mean, over the years, uh, research agents pay for research on sales, and there are statistics around this as to how much is the average price of a property compared to its original asking price.

Now, the market might say in some stage the average price reduction might be 5% in a, in a bad market is going to be 10%. So it depends on the market you're in. It depends on how well the property is priced in the first place. And they're some of the variables that when a, when a buyer says it's too expensive, it, it may well be that it's not priced correctly, or it might well be based on their inspection of other homes down down the road in other open homes, and it might be valid,

right?

Or it might just see them trying their luck.

It might be them trying their luck. And a lot of the times, you know, I mentioned just before some examples where a buyer says all the. A comparable property down the RO road sold for X? Well, if, if I go back to the computer and actually check that, quite often they're, they're working on false information.

They might say, oh, the price of that house down the road only sold for nine 50. When I look it up on the computer, it might've been 9 85 or something, but a friend of theirs said it sold for around nine 50. They don't even know themselves that they're working on false information. Yeah,

makes

sense. So trust, but verify.

And that's the role of an agent. And it's also a role of the agent, not just to provide that buyer feedback to the seller, but for the agent to go back to that buyer and say, Hey, that house didn't sell for nine 50. Here's the proof I've printed it off for you. It's sold for 9 85. Okay. And did you know that there was no swimming pool in that house?

Oh, no, I didn't

know that. No. So many, so many things people can overlook. Like, and like you said, you know, the neighbors told me it went for this. That's right. Um, you know, so, um, and look, I think, you know, again, from a I, I. Love it when you hear, um, people say, what do I need an agent for? Anyone can sell a house in that market, but just listening to all the things you say in this whole podcast series, Andrew shows the value of having an experienced agent like you, like yourself for all of these things.

I mean, how's someone, uh, you know, a lay person gonna understand any of the, in intricacies of any of this sort of stuff that, um, you obviously know, know? You know, all about. So look, another comment sellers often hear is that buyers are still looking or thinking about it. What should sellers understand when buyers, you know, they're getting a lot of, um, you know, buyers saying, well, I'll, I'll think I'm interested, but I'll think about it.

Mm-hmm. Well, there's a couple of things there. Or first of all, it may be sincere that the buyer is not confident in their own ability to make a decision to buy something because they simply haven't been. To enough open homes and seen enough properties that fit their, fit, their buy box so that they're confident enough to go ahead and make a decision.

Sometimes it may well be a situation where they're not even, uh, serious buyers and they're out there just killing their weekends learning about property.

Yep. Quite often here buyers say, you know, quite like the property, but I'm pretty sure I like, you know, another property better. What sort of questions do you ask a, a buyer in that scenario and what.

Is that feedback telling the seller,

well, look, the, look, there's always gonna be a better house than your house for sale. Uh, the price might be different, but what I like to do as an agent is if a buyer comes to me and says, oh, look, I like this house down the road better. It's very, very important that your agent actually says, well, okay, if you think this house is overpriced, is there a price that you're prepared to sign a contract today?

That you'd be excited about to own this property for? What price would excite you? Let's sign a contract and present it to the owner, because at the end of the day, when a buyer gives verbal feedback, sometimes you just can't rely on it. The most important feedback that a seller can get is a written offer.

Because they're, they're putting it in writing. They're, they're putting

it in writing. So it's important

that they're not shooting the breeze and throwing just numbers out there. There. That's

exactly right. So if your agent hasn't brought you written offers and is just giving you feedback, oh, you know, they say it's too expensive if the every week you're just getting feedback or the market says it's too expensive, you really need an agent who can get those buyers.

Okay. Well, if you think it's only worth 9 25 and not a million, will you sign a contract today at 9 25? I'll present it to the owner. And then I'll give them the feedback that you've provided as to why it's only worth 9 25,

which is giving something concrete to your seller as well. Whether they're willing to go there or not is because my next question is, you know, how do you use feedback to strategically structure the campaign going forward?

Well, the best way to provide that feedback. Is to get written offers by the buyers. Instead of saying, even if I think a seller's over price, it's important that I get buyers to sign contracts and make offers so that we've got real written feedback to go to the owner, hopefully within a couple of weeks.

Because if we leave it too long, the property goes stale. The property goes to page 10 11, 12 13 of realestate.com, and we get less and less interest. And at the future inspections, we have one or two people chain up instead of 20. And we're losing that opportunity to create the maximum competition, multiple offers.

And in all honesty, if your agent isn't providing you with written offers and plenty of feedback right at the start, the agent hasn't earned the right to tell you to drop your price.

I love that. Love that. So the takeaways for me really are. Feedback is a very valuable tool, and especially the very initial mm-hmm.

Feedback because we, we've spoken in other episodes just how important those first, that first week, that first two weeks are because they're buyers coming in who've probably been around for, um. Quite a while looking and they know what things are worth. They know what other houses have. Yeah, they know. So their feedback is going to be incredibly valuable in telling you where the campaign sits from day one.

And they'll also pick up things sometimes that an agent, well, now I'll give you an example. I sold a house in Parkwood last week was on a 801 square meter block, which is a reasonable size block of land. But when the buyer feedback came in, they said, oh, Andrew, this. There's not really much land here that's usable.

The backyard's pretty small. At the side of the house there's a big retaining wall and a garden, so you can't use that land because it's on a big hill and at the front there's no front fence, so you can't really use the front part of the yard. And even I as an agent, the 20 years experience, I thought, well, this is a decent sized bulb, 801, but it's true.

You couldn't use a lot of it. And the buyers who had their kids and their pets were thinking through that were, I. I might have bumped over that and didn't think it to be such a big, big issue. So sometimes bias provide feedback that an agent might overlook as well. Even with lots of experience, we can miss things.

So it's, it is an, an incredibly valuable insight. The feedback you, you get, it's something not to fear. So look, thanks again for joining us on, uh, another episode of Selling Southport. If you are thinking about selling and would like some guidance on how buyers are responding to homes in the Southport market, Andrew lives and breathes it every day of the week and is always happy to have a conversation and share his experience with you.

Contact him, Andrew. At professionals southport.com au. Um, thanks for listening and do share this episode with, uh, anyone you know, thinking of, of buying or selling, and look forward to seeing you on the next one. 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.

Seen.