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Searching & buying a property in a hot market

In today’s real estate market, it can be frustrating searching for a property to buy, with limited stock (properties on the market) and loads of other buyers in competition with you all trying to buy that same piece of the property market. There are a few ways that can get you ahead in the race for a home.

Agents are your friends. Get on your local agents radar, you will find the best way to do this is by simply get on their database, subscribe to their emails, this will allow you to stay up to date with new listings in the neighbourhoods you are interested in, open house dates and times and the current state of the market, Agents often send out newsletters, and market reports, ect. through their email database. You can subscribe to a particular agent email list and usually this will give you updates on every agent who works in that office listings. There are even some properties that are sold off market meaning they are only advertised to the agent’s database, so it is a really good idea to get on these mailing lists.

Set up alerts! Google alerts, realestate.com.au and domain alerts are a great way to keep on top of things also. Without your inbox being inundated with properties and developments that you aren’t interested in you can set up alerts from these sites to send only the particular suburbs and property types you are interested in, you can set the search alerts as broad or specific as you want, this saves you the time it takes to scroll through the whole suburb of properties for sale.

TIME TO ACT!

So, you have been to the Broker and have your preapproval and its now time to put all that hard work searching for a property to action - IT’S OPEN HOME TIME!

You have found the one you want, your own slice of property heaven what to do now.

Be prepared to act quickly, ask the agent what the offer process is, if possible, make a written offer there and then! Because if you don’t someone else will.

Hot markets are not the right time to start a long drawn out negotiation process with a low-ball offer. You run the risk of frustrating the seller and allowing other buyers to get involved. Do your research and put in an offer that is realistic and enticing to the vendor, based on solid comparable evidence, and then put the offer in writing. Putting a strong offer (close to but not your best) first, find out what settlement times the seller wants and work with them and hopefully that stops the competing buyers in their tracks.

Make your terms and conditions as attractive as possible or where possible buy with no conditions, a certain sale even if slightly less than another offer with a finance clause and other conditions attached will always get the sellers attention, but use a deadline, this can help you get the upper hand over a seller in a sellers’ market, nothing gets a seller to make a decision quickly than a great offer and a deadline.

If looking at a property that is going to Auction use the same strategy, make an offer quickly (i.e before auction), you will find a lot of sellers are prepared to accept and offer early in the campaign if it’s the right price.

by Chris Pole