Daniel & Monica’s Journey

I was engaged to bid on behalf of clients on a three storey, three bedroom street frontage property in Fitzroy North. The vendors had already purchased and their desired settlement was particularly tight. As I said to Daniel & Monica*, this is not the best way to trade in a market because a short sale campaign with restricted settlement options can reduce the pool of potential buyers. After all, many buyers and their banks or brokers can find a 30 day settlement requirement less than optimum. Anyway, the agent had informed me of two other very keen parties, one of whom had inspected the property six times.

“Six times?” my worried buyers asked me.

“Yes, six. But that isn’t a bad sign for us, in fact it’s a good sign,” I replied.

Buyers generally don’t inspect a property this many times if they are certain of its suitability to their needs. As a listing agent, I would be pleased to have a prospective buyer visit a property at an open inspection perhaps two or three times. Any more than that usually spells trouble of some sort. Either the buyer is not certain that the property is for them, or perhaps the property has a detractor or flaw that the buyer is hoping to get their head around. Multiple visits mean that something is just not right for them.

The brief was an exciting one. My clients had previously placed bids on a much smaller townhouse located on a busy little one way street in neighbouring Fitzroy. The result on the day back in early December last year was an incredible one. While the vendors had reason to be thrilled, my buyers missed out. The quoted price range was exceeded by more than $100,000 and it left my buyers wondering how they could break into the Fitzroy market on their budget.

After careful consideration and dialogue with them, we decided to pursue Fitzroy North, as this exciting inner suburb offers better value for their budget in terms of land and house size. Although it’s fair to say that compared with its neighbour, Fitzroy North does not offer quite as loud and vibrant a lifestyle, it has wider streets, quieter neighbourhoods and some really pretty houses. It was by no means a step down for them to move one suburb away from their original search location.

We mapped out all of the nearby local cafes, trams, parks as well as pubs and found it was hard to knock this new option. The identical budget offered considerably more floor area and land size than what Fitzroy would have presented. I also encouraged them to think about their short and medium term needs in terms of the size of the property.

Tom Roberts from Nelson Alexander strode out and started his auction preamble. I stood behind my mirrored sunglasses and took in the auction crowd. The buyer who inspected six times was easy to spot – she was surrounded by friends and family, appearing nervous.

A guy with a pen, pad and folder stood over in one corner and while I hadn’t seen him around before, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was another advocate.
Tom opened the bidding with a vendor bid at the base of the quoted range, after none of us were prepared to throw down the first bid. However, his comment when he did make his vendor bid of $780,000 gave me the impetus to make sure I was next.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I will make a vendor bid – and the only vendor bid, of $780,000”. This meant that in order to gain first right of refusal at the vendor’s reserve, I had to be the last standing bidder.

Tom called it three times and then went inside for the half-time vendor consult. I wandered over to the guy with the note book to find out what he was up to. As it turned out, he was scoping out the crowd and the level of interest because he had a firm plan to place his own property on the market shortly. I breathed a sigh of relief – no advocate enjoys sharing an auction with another advocate! The other bidders’ body language changed after half time and I could tell that the property was going to be passed in to me – and it was.

With a quoted price range of $780,000-820,000 and a desired settlement of 30 days, I secured this property for my buyers in Fitzroy North under the reserve after 35 minutes of negotiations for $818,000. My buyers were thrilled and they can look forward to a groovy lifestyle in a fabulous 3 bedroom street-fronted property with car space on title for many years to come. This enviable location and outstanding yield and growth prospects made for a happy buyer on auction day.