SELLING YOUR HOUSE? NAME THE 5 MOST IMPORTANT THINGS TO MAX YR PRICE

**Doug B** · 03-Apr-12, 02:22 PM

So you "express' an opinion 5 times,rip my industry off,...remember

try stay with the topic and keep it positive,it really is far more constructive. Thanx

**adrianh** · 03-Apr-12, 02:42 PM

You asked a question and I made a statement that I honestly believe to be true.

Let me understand this; I make a comment and you throw all your toys out the cot and insult me...and you wonder why I don't like estate agents. Don't you think that you would have been better off selling the services that estate agents offer rather than carrying on like a child. You made yourself look like a fool by not defending your position in a civil manner. Think about it, what do I stand to lose by needling you, nothing, (ok, to be fair, it does annoy Dave at times), what do you stand to lose, a hell of a lot more. So please don't preach to me, rather learn to defend your position without throwing a tantrum.

Anyway, I will concede this round as well, it was fun but its far too easy to get you all worked up. You need more practice in the art of 'keeping all the toys in the cot' Drop me a mail when you feel like playing again.

**Doug B** · 03-Apr-12, 02:45 PM

Check the doc for obsessive compulsive behaviour,tricky that one

**adrianh** · 03-Apr-12, 02:55 PM

Good one, I have no idea what that is, is it like an estate agent that doesn't know when to call it quits and keeps digging the same hole over and over again, never learning that he is standing in the hole?

We can go round and round forever but its getting boring because its just too easy. Anyhow, it was fun but all good arguments have to come to an end.

I thank you for your indulgence....

**Doug B** · 03-Apr-12, 04:39 PM

Now doesn't that feel better Adrian? All that venom and anger offloaded..gee, I'm

from taking all the credit for making you feel better..GO GET 'EM

......meanwhile us penniless

will carry on eating baked beans.....sigh...what a life

lighten up son,this is a forum not some childish platform where you can express your obvious frustrations

.....c h i l l ~ o u t.

**adrianh** · 03-Apr-12, 04:55 PM

...are you still at it...dude, you need to eat a Prozac...and I am not your son...

**Doug B** · 03-Apr-12, 05:11 PM

sorry sun,haha

**Justloadit** · 03-Apr-12, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Doug B

DECKS....how many times do we see flaky decks,off coloured where the sun has begun to effect the varnish? Get some temp labour,give it a light sand,buy some decent deck varnish,hire a painter and you will be amazed at the difference it makes both to your house and it's value.

Doing all this maintenance, then why sell the house, just keep it, it's looking damn good.

**Nigel Hamilton** · 04-Apr-12, 03:24 PM

Not going to get involved in this particular argument, however will tell you my experience a few years back.

We decided to sell ours and the agent commission i think was 6% To complicate matters though was that we were also looking to buy a new one. The purchase of any house was conditional on the sale of ours. We gave the mandate to one estate agent to do both.

We also were trying to get a 10% premium on the value of our house!

As you can imagine, the sale of our house took 6 months. I would say that the estate agent must have held at least 12 show days, and had personally showed it to 50 couples, before we had any offers. Most were below what we wanted. In addition we were also looking.... unfortunately the first 2 we liked were sold before we could sell ours, and not too many were interested in the deals we were making.

The estate agent also advertised our house in all the local mags, the free sites, newspapers etc for the entire 6 months at her cost.

She also had to collate our likes/dislikes/budget/location etc then wade through who has th mandates, do a deal maybe etc etc, then go and see the house..decide for herself if she would waste our time or not, and if she thought it fitted our parameters she would then have to arrange an appointment between all the parties..then show us the house. She showed us around 15-20 houses over a 6 month period.

Eveentually she got us the price we wanted on our house(at the 10% premium) we... within a week of accepting an offer, she showed us a house we loved..she didn't hold the mandate so did a discounted deal with the other agent.

The deals were done, she arranged the lawyers, the timing between deals..the flow of money etc etc etc.

Was very complicated, we worked out she must have spent over R20k on advertising alone, never mind the petrol and time it took for her to get this all right...working i would say every weekend. And we were only 1 of her clients!

Could we have done this ourselves..sure, but if i take into account what i charge for my own time, as well the immense learning curve and leg-work it would have entailed..i would never have done it..take into account we got a 10% premium by getting the right agent, who knew what they were doing, advertised correctly...so didn't cost us a cent, actually made an extra 4%

So my experience tells me, most estate agents are worth it.

If you have had a bad experience with one, don't lump all of them into the same basket. Same as a dentist, lawyer etc etc

**adrianh** · 04-Apr-12, 05:04 PM

So my experience tells me, most estate agents are worth it.

If you have had a bad experience with one, don't lump all of them into the same basket. Same as a dentist, lawyer etc etc

But the converse is also true:

If you have had a GOOD experience with ONE, don't lump all of them into the same basket. Same as a dentist, lawyer etc etc

Look, the point is this: Of course there are good people and bad people in any industry. How can one seperate the good people from the bad people up front without asking lots of questions? Yes, sometimes the questions are prevocative, but I would far rather discuss the questions in an open forum than find out R2mil down the line that my brand new second hand house has all sorts of issues that nobody takes responsibility for.