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Q9: Love your show and have watched the Uk and Abroad and now here you are in good old Oz, I have had my property on the market for nearly 10 months, no offers and even though tons of open house days only 4 viewings and they were just lookers driving around, the first real estate agent had no ideas on pricing stating there was nothing to compare it with and suggested $710,000, which I thought was way to high but the Ex thought was perfect, in the 4 months with that agent the price was reduced twice down to $695 and $685, decided to change agency with a well known company, same again with the price saying to hard as nothing to compare, lots of advertising and professional photo’s, nearly $50k on landscaping and veranda/entertainment area, new driveway, price dropped twice $675, and $659, every week open house, no viewer so no offers, New agent same company due to franchising details, again open house days, 2 viewers again just lookers and of course no offers, I had to put my foot down and say lets get this price right, got other agents views and valuator and dropped to $599, house well presented as always, land well maintained, Nearby shopping centre, lots of school buses pick up at front gate and loads of local schools, in a so called growth area, so why can’t I sell, desperate now and running out of funds, can’t rent it out or take it off the market as I need somewhere to live with my daughter and can not afford to keep this place. I feel through the agents unrealistic initial value I have wasted all this time and Yes I have constantly asked for guidance on pricing and offered my view about being way over the price but to deaf ears and the Ï know best I’am the agent, you are selling your house short as it is unique” I am exhausted health wise, emotionally and financially, so what’s next?? Here are my house details if you need more info, Help!!
http://www.gogecko.com.au/show?rd=1&ref=GSL10008

Anita Dawson, QLD 3/1/2010 7:17:43 PM

Andrew's answer
Q26: HOW DO U GET ON THE SHOW PLZ AND HOW DOES IT WORKS .

SABRINA LAMVOHEE, NSW 2/11/2010 1:24:54 PM

Andrew's answer
Q71: HOWDOES UR SHOW WORKS ...

sabrina lamvohee, NSW 1/5/2010 4:23:30 PM

Andrew's answer
Q75: What do I do if my home is austioned and no one comes?

Allison Zylberberg, VIC 11/29/2009 12:53:32 PM

Andrew's answer
Q96: Hi Andrew and team
What a great great show!!!! We love it. Thank you so much for making your experience and knowledge accessible to the public. My fiance and I rave about your work and cant get enough of your shows as we try and learn more about property.
My fiance and I bought a house in Bray Park, Brisbane a year and a half ago. We are in our mid to late 30's and we are trying to catch up financially. We have already made some changes to the house and have managed to increase the property value by $35k. We have clean out a lot of the garden clutter, put new fencing, added water tanks and repainted the interior of the house (About 95% done) (It was all green before - nightmare!)We are hoping to change the double store house into two seperate livable areas and have made some drawing plans to see if we could make it work. It seems to be that we could change this house (Currently 4 be, 1 bth, 1 toilet and 1 kitchen, with double garage and rumpus) into top and bottom level living with seperate entries and 3 beds, 1 bath, 1 kitchen on each level. However we would loose the double garage. I think that this change would be worth the investment because it will help us let the house to two tenants and thus get us closer to covering the mortgage since we would like to either move states or go closer into town. We cant afford to sell this house unless we can massively increase the equity. I am happy to send many before and after photographs and would value any advice you can give me at all.
Please let me know if you can help me with some advice. We could boorow some money against our mortgage to commit to some changes but I would like to make sure that we invest in changes that will give us the greatest returns (In either sale or rental opportunities) We have much catching up to do financially and would love your help ;-D
Many Thanks
Michelle

Michelle Louw, QLD 8/18/2009 11:37:58 AM

Andrew's answer
Q133: Hi Andrew,
I have a bit of a problem, there are 4 parties involved in a property we bought 5 years ago. My mum and Dad, my Brother and myself. We bought in Tamworth, 265 acres for $330K and my mum and dad sold up everything they owned for a sea change and moved from Sydney to Tamworth to retire and build there dream home!!! For us kids, it was going to be great invest proerty that we would inherit.
Sounds like a great idea right????? Wrong! Everything has fallen to hell. Apart from the family falling apart, my mum and Dad have NO money, are worse off then what they were! We need to sell the property and my brother and I are at the point of accepting near anything!! But obviously my parents have alot more invested in it and need more. We originally had it on the market for 1.2million, and we have dropped it down to 975K, the real estate (Elders Tamworth) think we should be looking at 899K??? The real estate, I feel, has not done too much to pump up the enquiry. It is in the paper 'from time to time' and on the internet??
The house is a 3 bedroom home with bathroom, sep toilet and ensuite on the main room. Big gallery style kitchen with walk in pantry, smallish dining area and medium size lounge. It then has a 'breeze way' that seperates the main house with the granny flat - that has 2 bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom and lounge area.
We don't have much money to do much more to the house/land which is unfortunate as it has alot of potential. The land has 4 dams and a creek/gully that runs through oneside of the land.
Its such a shame that this has turned bitter and that my parents and brother who have worked SO hard on building the house and getting the land fenced and looking neat and tidy, for it all to go to waste!
I live in Sydney so I just hear everything that is happening.
Please help us..... help our family sell this property before it does more damage.... sorry for no photos, but if you go onto the elders website we are listed there with lots of photos. No photos of the outside of the house though as the real estate say they can't get a good shot of the whole house????? Hmmmm I beg to differ?
PLEASE HLEP ME!!!!!

Catherine McAuley, NSW 5/30/2009 8:40:55 PM

Andrew's answer
Q136: We have a well maintained house on 1.5 acres, 2 minutes from the centre of Bundaberg ( 4.5 hrs drive nth of Brisbane ). Our house was built in 1881 and is 70 squares under roof - queenslander style with ball room, large verandahs, 5 bedrooms, office, 3 entertaining areas, 4 car , 2 bathrooms, landscaped gardens. The house is of historic interest to the town and is featured in a book of same. We have a 100,000 litre pool and extensive gardens. We are building a new house in Montville so will be selling our house in the next year or so once the build is complete ( the sale is not needed before the build so timing is not vital ).We have had 4 agents give us a figure for the sale of our house and land - the values suggested ranged from $600K - $1.1M. A huge and confusing spread! We have also looked at the option of sub dividing the block into 2 x 3/4 acre blocks - some costs invovled of course.
( council and tax wise on sale later ) Would you think it wise to subdivide? The other block would end up with the pool. We also considered placing another historic queenslander on the block to create a small precinct of historic interest - limited market though? We would value your thoughts on this many faceted question. I have tried to load a photo but am not able to get it on - happy to send you some attached to an email on my regular server if you wish. Ihave many taken by a professional photographer recently of the outside and some available of the inside from a family wedding etc. I look forward to hearing your advice - love your show and like you am an avid ( but amateur ) follower of all things property.

Pam  Maclean, QLD 5/29/2009 10:33:01 AM

Andrew's answer
Q155: Hi Andrew,

Love your work, am also addicted to property shows, can watch them in marathons! I have an unusual question for you that you should find suitably challenging. In 2007 I bought some land in Cranbourne West, Victoria, 42 kms south east of Melbourne. A cottage block, 365m2 for $72,000. Yes I'm a bargain hunter. 12 months later it was valued by the bank at $100,000. As the measurements of the land were somewhat compact, with a 14 metre frontage and 25 metres deep, I found house plans through major builders to be few and far between for a frontage less than 15.5 metres. As I wanted to build a dual occupancy home, I decided to design it myself. Happy to say it was a great success and I moved in to the property in June 2008. I borrowed the money to build the house, and pay for half the land, when I didn't have a full time job or any income. I overcame that hurdle by having a fabulous broker (who I've used several times) who got me a No Doc Loan through Adelaide Bank, who are 1 of only 4 banks within Australia who loan money on a No Doc basis, and just 1% higher variable interest rate. I built what looks like a standard 12 square home with a double garage. The front two thirds of the house (8.16m2) is a spacious 1 bedroom unit with internal access to the double remote garage. The rear one third of the house is a bedsit or studio flat (4.3m2) with its own bathroom, laundry, kitchenette and private courtyard, that I rent out for $175 pw (includes bills). There is a dividing wall between the two dwellings with a 20cm cavity & soundcheck plaster to minimise noise between the two dwellings. Building regs required a door between the two dwellings however after handover I had a carpenter custom build a single robe to fit very snugly into this walk through space, with what was the door between the two dwellings, is now the wardrobe door for the rear dwelling, with the two dwellings now being separate from each other, but able to be returned to the original design by removing the custom built wardrobe which is not fixed. Banks would value the property at around $240,000 in today's market and similar sized houses in my street regularly sell for around that amount, and are rented at around the $260 pw mark. My question is, as my house could achieve a rental return of say $350 pw from the two dwellings under 1 roof, yet banks will only value it on the basis that it's essentially a 2 bed, 2 bath house with double garage, will that pose a problem for potential buyers when they apply for a loan to purchase the house, given that I want to sell it for around the $310,000 range, based on the rental return it can achieve. Would love your opinion.

And of course I wouldn't say no if you wanted to feature my home on your program! I understand building regs will be changing to allow more flexibility in designs so that dual occupancy dwellings can be designed and built. I want to sell this one and do another dual occ. I'm thinking of buying a larger block, around 800 m2, sub-dividing into 2, and building a dual occ on each, selling one and keeping one. I'm 39, single, and have bought and sold 3 properties in the past 5 years, of which 2 of them were units in larger complexes and set records that stood for 18 months each so I have some experience buying & selling but love designing and feel what I've done fills a gap in the market.

Will stop now, or this email could become very large!

Thanks,

Jo

Jo Cerda, VIC 5/23/2009 8:57:19 PM

Andrew's answer
Q220: Hi Andrew,

I have a property that you may be interested for your program. It is a "Sea Change" home in the Whitsundays Region of North Queensland.

Whilst some would say it is a palatial home, it is in a very affordable range for this style of home.
It has every conceivable feature - helipad, Guesthouse/staff quarters, 700m2 of internal entertaining area, internal swimming pool (in lounge area) and panoramic views to the islands of the Great Barrier Reef and along the coast. It is positioned on 3.5hectares of virgin rainforest and only 2 minutes from the centre of the tourist hub of Airlie Beach. I have been trying to attract appropriate Real Estate Agents to promote this unique property and have had no-one of any ilk interest me todate. I have been impressed by the professional production of your programs. I felt that there could be a story based on the impact the Global Economic Climate has had on luxury properties. I have been considering reducing the expected pricing from $5.5mil to hit the market for an auction with a reduced reserve pricing of $3.5mil. As they say " Desperate Times take Desperate Measures". We can see the days of the Gordon Gecko are gone - Essentially "GECKO" has been "K.O.'d" and all that remains is the "G.E.C" of GECKO.

Anyway, I felt there may be an angle that your story's may be able to follow. I am flexible as to what direction you may wish to take the property. You can hang me out to dry if that helps make the story.
I am contactable on 0414 869 289 if you'd like to speak to me.
Regards
Peter Hegarty

Peter Hegarty, QLD 3/27/2009 5:30:50 PM

Andrew's answer
Q256: Hi Andrew,

Thank you for sharing your expertise on selling houses, I watch your show from Australia and tell all about it to my parents in Paris who have been struggling selling their property for over 12 months. Dad is an architect and designed his own houses. The last on the list is located in Louveciennes, only 18kms from the Eiffel tower, nestled in a heritage listed village along side the garden of the castle of Versailles, few kms of St Germain en Laye. The property was built only 5 years ago on a 2800 square metres land surrounded by mature trees. The location is exceptional, the access to highways to Paris only 2kms away, public transport, best schools... An ideal location for families to raise kids and be amongst french heritage. The house is modern, conteporain, very well presented and designed. It offers 4 good size bedrooms with ensuite in each of them, one parental suite with walk-in built in robe, large bathroom all very well finished. Parental suite and 2 bedrooms upstairs set up around the centre of the house which overlook the lounge room downstairs. From the living room downstaris you have the ceiling which is the actual room of the house, so in the middle of the lounge the volume is up to 8metres high overlooking the manicured garden though 3 large french doors of 2.8m high opening on a large decking area, corner glass to open the space. The left wing dowstairs has 2 extra bedrooms or office with one bathroom, and the right wing is the family room open plan kitchen/dining/second living area with a cheminee see through from the lounge to the family room. In the undergrounds, windows add natural light and a service independent apartment with own access, a gym or cinema room, a wine cellar and plenty more space. The total living area should be 350 square metres with potential to add 120 square metres if desired. Outside, attached to the house is a double car garage, plus 4 more spaces for cars outdoor. Exterior lightings and plenty more makes this property unique in Louvecinnes. Well melted into the environment the house was on the market for over 12 months, had many interest from varied type of viewers but no offers or only few that were not reasonnable. Are mum and dad too greedy? Initially on the market at 2.4million Euros, went down to 2.2 and with the current economy thinking of going to 1.9million. Mum and dad need to sell to move onto a smaller property. I believe that the property is well worth the price but may not be well marketed by the agent. What would be your advice to market the property to overseas buyers? It seems like french people rather buy gold than real estate at the moment and I believe that many overseas buyers would enjoy such a property located in the best area of the Parisian subburbs. On your next visit to Paris, I would love you to visit and meet with Alain to explain him the problems he will have to deal with and how we could market the house overseas.

I hope you can help and I look forward to hearing from you soon. Let me know if you wish to view pictures.

Talk soon.

William

William Bled, VIC 3/1/2009 11:33:18 AM

Andrew's answer
Q274: which area have you bought in

Graham and Ellen Beasley, QLD 1/11/2009 7:46:38 PM

Andrew's answer
Q275: Will Houses in Robina grow in value in the credit crunch

Graham And Ellen Beasley, QLD 1/11/2009 7:44:42 PM

Andrew's answer
Q278: Hi, we've been living in a 50 year old asbestos house for 3 years & have decided to move but the house needs a lot of work - the house is very dated, eg. lime green & mission brown kitchen, dated bathroom, walls are cracked & we have a half acre bush block. 2 questions: 1) How do you know when you're going too far with renovating to sell? I'd like to just tidy it up & fix all the essential things, put it on the market & then, while its on the market gradually do less urgent things until a buyer wants to buy it but my husband wants to go all the way renovating it before putting it on the market.. Its in Roleystone WA, quite a pricey neighhourood we have outstanding valley views that are across the road, but we're realistic & know its probably only worth $350K, the lower end of the Roleystone market because of its age & the fact that its asbestos (only on the outside). We'd like $370 after the work has been done. Is a year's worth of work of about $10,000 too much time & money to spend? I'd like to personaly just clean it up & try selling it as someone may buy it & knock it down anyway or, at the very least, realise its 50 yrs old & so will need some updating. 2). We'd like to buy before we sell, we were thinking of buying & renting the new house out for a year while we renovate and try selling the old one. We can save about $2500 per month after expenses & figure a loan for the new house after a tenant has paid rent will be about $700/$800 per month extra which we can easily afford. Should we buy now while interest rates are down while we're trying to sell our current house? Are there any traps to doing this? Hope you can help. Thanks so much, Latasha.

Latasha Wood, WA 1/3/2009 10:47:57 PM

Andrew's answer
Q286: Andrew - My son had 3 agents around to value his house and picked the one he felt he had the best repour with. This agent signed him to an exclusive agency agreement for 90 days, as he said that is the min they do it for. This agent then left that agency 2 weeks later. My son rang the REIA and was told he had a binding agreement as the agent signed on behalf of the agency. The agency then appointed an agent at their discretion who, while more experienced, has not changed the original agent's name on the website ad for my son's house even after 5 weeks and has not displayed any brochures in his office of my son's home and has told my son to submit copy to him regarding his house if he wants him to submit it for editorial, which I thought would be the agent's job, not the vendors. The house was listed for 460-480 with one offer after 7 weeks of 420. My son rejected that and put in a counter offer which was rejected. The people said they could only afford 420 and were genuine. After a week or so of re-doing his figures, my son asked the agent to approach the people and say he would accept the $420. They then came around again and did a thorough inspecition and then decided to get a building report. My son then said that was OK but he would advertise it this week and open it with a reduced price of $440 and would be open to offers at those opens. The agent did not want to open the house on the weekend. I feel the agency is quite disinterested in my son's - their clients - best interests. They have only done 4 opens in 8 weeks and I want to know if there is some way my son can appoint an agent of His choice, not that of this laxadazial agency. His wife is due to give birth to their second child in early March and he is very quiet at work which is contract work. He is coping very stoicly but I feel the last thing he needs is extra pressure from a fairly blaze agent. Your advice would be very much appreciated.

Madeline Anderson, SA 12/16/2008 1:40:33 AM

Andrew's answer
Q305: Hi Andrew, my retired parents in Perth, WA need some good advice from you. They have been retired a few years and living comfortably in their (paid off) 2 storey family home in northern suburb of Noranda. In April this year (2008), they had what I would call a "crazy notion" to downscale their 2 storey family home for a smaller 3 bedroom townhouse and started looking for a new house. They found a lovely one in a neighbouring suburb and before I could warn them not to buy, they had already sealed the deal on the new house, but before selling their existing 2 storey house. They had 3 months til settlement and of course their worse nightmare has been realised, settlement day has arrived with no realistic offers for their 2 storey home. They were hoping for $700K+ for their 2 storey, whilst their 3 bdrm was bought at $570K. However they've only rec'd an offer of $600K which they flatly rejected. They don't want to enter into bridging finance, and have decided to rent out their new place until their existing house sells for a reasonable price. It is such a shame they have to endure this stress in their retirement after working so hard all their life. The 2 storey house built in 1980's has not been updated, but is still very comfortable, albeit with outdated colours. Do you suggest they stick with their plan to rent out new place til their house sells, or do you suggest they invest a bit in perhaps renovating the kitchen/bathroom of 2 storey? Please view their house at: http://www.passmore.com.au/property.aspx?pid=2421536

Maria  Hwee, WA 8/21/2008 1:28:52 PM

Andrew's answer
Q307: Dear Andrew
I am in a similar position to one of your tv show clients. I am in a 'must sell' situation, against my own desires, due to unaffordability. (Long story) My property is on 700m2, 200m from water, in a small cul-de-sac. My home is 29.5 sq, 16 yr old home which has been on the market for nearly 5 months. There is a couple of unusual aspects, such as a large main bedroom (with ensuite and WIR), then a smaller (but still big) double bedroom with it's own WIR, and 2 3x3m or bigger single bedrooms.The living area is huge(9sq), bright and airy with cathedral ceilngs. It has an equally large, all weather al fresco entertainment area.
I have had LOTS of people through, many more positive comments than the few negative, and yet only ONE offer, and that was a week ago. It is beautifully presented, inside and out, as many of the lookers have remarked upon. My neighbours are lovely people. We look out for each other and our homes, but mind each others privacy. A couple of the older ladies in the court have become like grandmother's to my children. It is in an area called Victoria Point which has become very popular along with the other water-side suburbs in this area. However, VP has a 'village' feel to it in comparison to the 'yuppy' feel that other areas have, and is therefore very popular with families and older people.
My original asking price was 698,000, allowing generous room for bargaining. The RE agent I had at the time assured me that I could get 675,000 at the time. Approx 2 months ago, after reviewing the market etc ( and changing agents) I dropped that to 619,000. My only offer has been for 580,000, which I refused and counter offered with 609,000. Nothing further happened. There is no other property like mine, and that's the agents comment, not just mine. The front of the house, though attractive and appealing in it's presentation, does not indicate the size and potential of inside. So many people have walked through, lookers and real estate agents, and have been surprised, some taken aback, at the space inside, the openess and the potential of my home. It's difficult to gauge the 'rightness' of my asking price when there is very little to compare it to. I would like to walk out after commission with 600K. I have made it well known and clear to my agents that I have always been very negotiable, but bar the one offer, there has been no offers. HELP!

Looking forward to your reply, and I appreciate how busy you must be,
Joy

Joy , QLD 8/19/2008 9:53:14 PM

Andrew's answer