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‘Oh my god': Sydney woman's 7-day trick to buy Sydney apartment
‘Oh my god': Sydney woman's 7-day trick to buy Sydney apartment

News.com.au

time3 hours ago

  • Business
  • News.com.au

‘Oh my god': Sydney woman's 7-day trick to buy Sydney apartment

The property market is tough, just ask Lindsey Fellows, who offered a 7-day settlement to starve off the competition. Ms Fellows, 55, is an office manager for the skincare and wellness brand, The Fountain of Youth and Lifestyle and spent three months trying to buy in the incredibly competitive Sydney property market. 'I was sort of losing the will to live,' she joked. 'I had previously gone for an apartment at auction, and that was horrendous, and I never wanted to do that again.' The most appalling aspect of the auction was that a one-bedroom apartment in South Sydney, priced at $750,000, ultimately sold for a staggering $951,000. One auction failure was enough for the office manager to find herself completely depressed by the Sydney property market, where the median price for an apartment is now $1 million. 'What I found was real estate agents are different beings to the rest of us in the world. They always put the price guide really low,' she told She argued that you genuinely need to add on about $100,000 to every price guide you see listed in Sydney to get into the 'right ballpark,' otherwise you'll find yourself disappointed. When she found another apartment she liked in Alexandria with a price guide of $750,000 she was determined not to miss out. 'The apartment was at a guide of like $750,000, and so I spoke to them, and I just said, 'Look, I don't want to go to auction again,' she said. The agent informed Ms Fellows that the owner would be open to offers, so she went in hard and offered $800,000 straightaway. 'It was always going to go over $800,000, and I wasn't going to go in too low,' she said. The offer wasn't accepted straight away, and she was informed the vendor wanted to do a few open viewings first. After the weekend, she was contacted again and told that another woman had made an offer who wanted to buy the place for her son. Ms Fellows put in another offer of $820,000 to starve off the competition, but the other bidder than offered $850,000 and then things got tense. 'I was like, 'oh my god … here we go,' Ms Fellows said. Eventually she offered $880,000 and managed to outbid the competition, but then she was told a buyer's agent offered $900,000 on a client's behalf. 'I just thought for the love of god,' she said. 'The real estate agent said, 'If you do want it, you need to give me your best offer', and I said, 'I have been giving you my best offers,' she said. Ms Fellows relented and put in an offer of $910,000, and to sweeten the deal, offered to do an earlier settlement. She remembered her mortgage broker had said they could easily get her mortgage sorted within 7 days, so she offered a 7-day settlement; in general, settlements typically go for 42 days. The agent then spoke to the vendor, who was so pleased with this 7-day settlement offer that the agent said it was enough for the vendor to 'stick' with her offer and not accept any other offers, even if they were higher. Ms Fellows claimed she was told that if the vendor got '20 more offers', he'd stick with hers because of the short settlement. So she agreed and then had to break the news to her conveyancer, who was 'panicked,' and her mortgage broker, who was surprised but less stressed. Despite everyone's initial freak-out, both her mortgage broker and conveyancer managed to get the whole thing 'done and dusted' within five days. Ms Fellows explained that sometimes you have to think outside the box, especially when you're at the 'bottom end' of the market, where competition is fierce. 'There's so much competition, and I was buying as one person, and you're up against couples who have that two-salary power,' she said. Ms Fellows' mortgage broker, Craig McDonald, the owner of CBM Mortgages, said that he'd never had anyone request a 7-day settlement before. 'The standard settlement is 42 days and you have clients asking if you can do 30 days. This was an exception when she asked me to do it in 7 days,' he told Mr McDonald said he is seeing people request quicker settlements 'more than normal' because they're trying to compete in the Sydney market. The mortgage broker explained that it was possible because Ms Fellows had 'existing approval from a solid lender,' and so he was able to make it happen within a week. He said if any buyers want to use the offer of a shorter settlement to sweeten the deal, they need to make sure they have the 'right lender' because some lenders just aren't that fast. Mr McDonald said in general, there are just a lot more buyers on the market right now, which is 'pushing prices up' thanks to a combination of rates holding and government schemes.

How to sell your house privately in Australia and avoid agent commissions
How to sell your house privately in Australia and avoid agent commissions

Daily Mail​

time4 days ago

  • Business
  • Daily Mail​

How to sell your house privately in Australia and avoid agent commissions

Thousands of Australians are opting to sell their homes themselves in a bid to avoid paying increasingly costly agents fees and commissions. Barry Johnston, aged in his 60s, is among the thousands of Australians who have decided to do away with real estate agents and instead sell their homes privately. Mr Johnston initially engaged with a real estate agent who told him to list his four-bedroom Logan Village, Queensland home at about $1.25million. Having lived in the area for 14 years, he believed his property could fetch $1.42million and decided to privately list it at that value. Within five days, he has secured a 'firm offer' at his listing price and a further offer above asking. 'The agents that have been through here have really undervalued our place, they just wanted to make a quick turnover,' he told Daily Mail Australia. He photographed the property himself and engaged with a third-party website that allowed him to advertise his home on real estate portals for a nominal fee. In all, he estimated the process cost him no more than $2,000 - less than the fee an agent had quoted him for professional photography alone. He said it was 'a lot of work', but said much of it - including readying the property for sale - would have been necessary even with an agent. He expected selling privately will end up saving him about $30,000 in commission and adding up to $150,000 to his closing price. 'In today's economy, that's nothing to be sneezed at,' he said. For Mr Johnston, the question was as simple as: 'Can I justify paying someone so much for something I could do myself?' 'There's just nothing that the real estate agent can do that I can't do, that's basically the crux of it.' Real estate expert Neil Jenman told Daily Mail Australia most homeowners could secure as good or better results than most agents with 'a few hours research'. 'Australian home sellers are bluffed, manipulated, misinformed and terrified into believing they have to use a real estate agent to sell their home,' he said. He claimed Australia's rates of private home sales were among the lowest in the world, while the costs of advertising are the highest of anywhere in the world. 'Most agents don't do anything the sellers couldn't do themselves,' he said. For a flat fee, however, homeowners can pay to advertise on third party sites who, as registered agencies, are allowed to list the ads on property portals like and Domain. Colin Sacks, who runs one such third party site, told Daily Mail Australia said sale enquiries had grown 25 per cent in the past 18 months. 'The number of enquiries I get every day for people who are thinking about this, it's just growing more and more,' he said. 'There's no question... it's just getting busier and busier.' Michael Fotheringham, managing director at Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute agreed third party sites appeared to have increased the rate of private sales. 'It's a minority of sales overall, but there is a strong undercurrent of people who are making a choice not to go through agents and do it themselves,' he said. He said buyers could stand to gain just as much as earners from the shift towards private sales. 'There a three parties involved in a property transfer: the buyer, the seller and the middle man. When you cut out the middle man, there can be a lot of savings.' That said, selling privately won't appeal to homeowners of all kinds. Joanne White recently tried unsuccessfully to sell her commercial property in Stawell, north-west of Melbourne, before engaging a real estate agent. She told Daily Mail Australia selling privately is difficult where 'unique' properties like her own - a converted former residence - are involved. 'I think my biggest issue is, basically, I have a unique property that really, there's not anything else like it in the whole of Australia,' she said. Despite the challenges, Ms White said she would consider selling privately again with a less challenging property. President of the Real Estate Institute of Australia Leanne Pilkington said the work of agents extends well beyond arranging a sale. 'Selling a property is not just about listing it online - it involves legal compliance, understanding market conditions, negotiating with buyers and stakeholders, and managing contracts,' Ms Pilkington told Daily Mail Australia. 'Going private may seem appealing, but it can lead to costly mistakes or delays if the process isn't handled correctly according to legal requirements.'

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