hi there ricardo johnson here your
property professional on the east rand
uh what i'm going to speak about today
is
how to get your property sold quickly
okay
now uh there are many
look i've been a proper professional now
for
for a couple of years and um
the first thing is that i see sellers
make a whole lot of mistakes in
basically trying to sell their
properties
and um today i'm just going to assist
you
in this video just to basically
um explain why you want to do certain
things and why you don't want to do
other things in order to get your
property sold
fast and at the highest price all right
okay great number one is it's a bad idea
to do it yourself
don't do it yourself
in south africa we don't have official
stats but in america the stats are
that 96 of
um of owners who would try to sell
properties without the use of an estate
agent
end up doing so through an estate agent
and the reason is it's just not as easy
as what people think it is
property sales is a profession the same
way that being a lawyer or a doctor
would
um would um would require
professional services uh you wouldn't
expect
yourself to outline your defense
if you needed an attending a criminal
case nor would you would you
expect a doctor to handle you the
scalpel
if you needed brain surgery
now why would you would you think that
you could
sell a property yourself and um
and do as good a job as what the
professionals would do there's a reason
why property professionals such as
myself basically
earn the commissions that we do it's
because it's a
it's a very specialist field and
it's definitely not in the do it
yourself arena okay
so the first thing that i would do if i
was you and i want to sell a property
i was going to try to find a good
estate agent now are there better state
agents out there
sure they are the same with their bad
lawyers and back to doctors there
are better state agent agents out there
um
so you need to identify how
how you would uh notice
a good estate agent okay the first thing
that i would do is i would go on the
internet now we are all
google friendly these days we'll
basically
wipe out our cell phones very very
quickly jump on our laptops
and we'll um go and get
uh an agent very very quickly
now the another thing is if i'm on the
internet and i'm looking for a
foreign agent i'm gonna look for an
agent
that has at least 15
active for sale listings
on whichever website that you're looking
at and the reason that you will
do this is because you want an agent
that is active
an agent with under 15 uh
for sale listings is not really an
active agent
you might be a part-timer and that
that's not who you
would who you want to do your job um he
might be
um someone that is just not
motivated enough to basically
do you do his job and that's why here so
that'll
does things so i'm going to look for
someone that has over 15
investings on the website okay
then the next thing i'd like to explain
to you
is that in this
in the market of selling houses time is
not your friend
now you may not feel in any hurry to
sell your property
but the money that your property becomes
available
on the market and is on any website
or anything like that what is going to
happen
is that the clock starts ticking
oh oh a well-priced property
um follow the area you know
presented well will sell within
30 days of being enlisted it's not
uncommon for me to sell a property
within its first
week provided that it is um
priced well and that i've marketed
it correctly okay so
um now why did i say that time is not
your friend
time is not your friend because the long
uh
the longer that your property stays are
on the
advertised on the internet and so forth
the more
buyers that have not yet found exactly
what they're looking for
tends to think that your property
must have a problem even
if the problem is not
obvious they assume that something is
wrong with a property
that has been on the market for a while
because they are thinking about
why isn't has no one bought this
property
that's a very important reason for you
to
get the help of a professional from day
one
and not to try to do it yourself
okay so and this
often results in just for that reason
in this in the buyer putting in offers
of
70 or or 80 percent of like asking price
let's say for instance your oxygen price
was
um 1.5 million they'll put in an
offer of anywhere between 1 million rand
to 1.3
million right just based on the fact
that it's been on the market for a long
time
and therefore they get the impression
that by now
you must be feeling desperate to sell
your property
isn't that in this range you know but
that's the way before
okay so you listen you don't want to get
your
you don't want to leave your property on
the on the market for for a long time
you basically wanna wanna market it well
market it aggressively
and um and move it as quickly as
possible even if you do not feel any
media that
rush to move remember it on average
takes another three months
after you've signed an offer to purchase
for you to actually
move from your property okay great
okay now when now when you get an agent
um besides looking at how many
listings he's got in the area you also
want to look for
um other commitments that it's got in
the area what i'm talking about here is
i'm talking about
advertising does does this person have
outdoor advertising
such as uh
billboards and signs area
area agent boards soul boards uh
other for sale boards inside the area in
other words
easy investing in in getting
the properties that he's selling exposed
inside that area is investing in getting
himself
known inside inside that area that's
very important
now after you've called the agent and
it's basically he's
made an appointment with you and he's
come to your house he's probably going
to show up there with
a cma or a comparative market analysis
this analysis um what this is going to
give you this
report is going to give you um recent
sales in like your area the
the prices that they actually sold for
not the prices that they were advertised
for
giving example your neighbor two doors
down
could have been marketing his place for
1.5 million but it sold
at 1.3 million this will give you a
rough
estimate of what you can ask for your
place
save for its exact location and the
additional finishes and so forth that
you have put into your house
important to note when i'm talking about
finishes and features of the house
is the most important actor
in um in selling a property
is its area location and not really
its um its features price wise
you know um you could you could take
a million rent house and put it into a
into an elite
upper class area and the same
house with the same features with the
same
everything except for where it's located
could pick up four or five times more in
asking price which means in your
um in your 1.5
million rain case if it was in in that
type of area it could have picked up
between 6 and 7.5 million rent
you know but and then the converse is
also true you take the same house you
put it into a much much worse
area putting talk into a crime infested
area where
um uh or in or an area within
battle services and little roads and
things like that and whatever
and you'll find that that house that is
where you are living worth 1.5 million
now is only worth let's say 400 to 600
000 right
you know so it makes a very very very
very big difference where the house
is and for this reason the amount of
money that you put into your house for
instance putting in a hundred thousand
range jacuzzi
and entertainment room may not raise the
value of your house by a hundred
thousand but perhaps only by ten
fifteen or twenty thousand ranked okay
so it's
very important to basically um to
basically consider
the area that the house is in okay
now now now when the agent comes with
his um
well with the cma again one of the
considerations that you
that you must take into consideration is
the price per square meter achieved
i've seen many very very nice houses
where
um someone expects let's say for example
3 000 rand per square meter for his
house
and this area is doing 1400 grand
per square meter or even 1 800 per
square meter
obviously this is just not realistic
your agent will also know
what the average incomes of people that
move into the
area is what this means is that
look people that are similar from
similar
backgrounds they live in similar areas
generally they drive similar cars and so
forth
so what would happen is that if your
area is an area where the average family
and sixty thousand rand a month
okay and um the bond
or if someone had to purchase your house
would require them to buy
and to earn 90 000 round house you'd
have a really really tough time
finding a buyer willing to spend that
type of money in your area
you know um so it's very very important
that agents will should have that as
well
now you should also know where the
schools
where the shopping centers where are the
police stations
where are the hospitals and those
happenings
what is happening inside the area what
are the future plans for the area
and why is this important
that this is important because
the while you may already know
all these things your buyer may not and
your buyer is going to ask the agent the
agent needs to be able to tell them
listen
no your child will be going to school to
year it will be a duel medium school or
it will be
an afrikaans only school it will be in
english only school
um the closest shopping center is two
blocks away
etc etc etc okay great
then um also you'd want to
test your your real estate agent
and how you test your real estate agent
is to test what is response times is
it does not matter if a real estate
agent works with the
best company that has brilliant
marketing standard
and he does not respond to queries on
your
on your house we respond
four days later to a critical career in
your house that would be a problem
so how would i test him i would go to
one of the
last things that is on the internet i
would click an inquiry
please call melanie or john
um i would like to inquire about
this house whichever house it is if that
agent takes 10 minutes to respond to you
that's fantastic
it takes 20 minutes off an hour great
this is a brilliant
agent you know if this agent takes
three hours doesn't mean that he is a
bad agent
him he might be busy most school agents
are like
appointments all day but if it takes
24 hours or 48 hours 72 hours to get
back
back to you this is when you know
this is not the agent that you're
looking for because if
your buyer had clicked on his property
and after six hours he had not cut him
back to this buyer he you just got
supplies going to click on someone
else's property and click on someone
else's property
until he finds an agent that he's going
to respond to him
i'm sure that makes sense right okay
great
okay and then what we're going to speak
about now
is your agent's negotiation skills
now your agent
needs to have a negotiation as a very
very strong
skill set in in his profession
and many sellers have
a problem with paying the agent's
commission
so because um you have a problem um
with the agent's commissioning room
before you sold the property sometimes
a sometimes even before you've even
decided to that's your property but
already decided i don't want
an agent not because they don't know
what they're doing but i don't want an
agent because an agent is going to
charge me money to do it
well did you ever hear that the best
advice is free advice
exactly you know what i mean um
what happens is that the agent earns his
fee
because as a professional he's entitled
to his fee
you know and the average fee under the
residential sale at the moment
is 7.5 in south africa okay
that's excluding fact what that means is
if you sell your house
for 1.5 million you're gonna pay
um that is a hundred and twelve thousand
five hundred grand in commission
plus fed now if you say no but this is
too much money and so forth
okay if your agent accepts
five percent or six percent or six point
five percent
easily then you have the wrong
agent and the reason is simple
if he cannot negotiate his commission
with you how is he going to negotiate
hate
the sale of your house if he
if he cannot tell you why he deserves
7.5 percent
even his company for the investment that
they're making into your
um into your property
how is he going to tell the buyer that
wants to offer
70 of the asking price of your property
why they should
at least consider 90 or 95
to get you the best price he will not
have the skill to do that
so you need to make sure that your agent
has the proper negotiating skills
in order to get you the best price okay
great now the next thing is mandates
mandates or permissions to sell this is
another thing that
um sellers kind of get wrong even when
they choose to use an agent
most sellers have tried to sell by
themselves and then they decide
that maybe they should use an agent
and now the first problem is
they don't want to commit to an agent
now that's kind of like saying
i want you to i want you to
i want to have all the benefits of of
having a
wife without getting married
that's not fair to the other party
either great
now yes what happens is that
sellers that that are afraid to give an
agent
um a sole mandate or an exclusive
mandate
or the teller uh um are basically
opting for open minded now open mandates
uh are mandates where you have
many agents marketing the same property
you uh you can notice these ones when
you drive down the street and you see
there's
a um there's a board from one company
plus a board from another company plus a
board from another company plus a board
from another company
some sellers try to hide this by telling
the agents don't put out a board
well it doesn't really really help them
too much because when you go into the
internet and you look at the major
property companies
what would happen is that the property
company the
um the property portal will say listed
by nine agencies by five agencies or so
or whatever as well and the buyer will
still get the impression you know what
the seller is desperate even if you're
not
just the fact that you've given an open
mandate so every agency can basically
market your property
you basically are giving the impression
that you are desperate
okay and this would lead to once again
lower office
70 percent of the asking price 75 80
percent
all global offers here you know
if your property is priced correctly
so so no you know you don't want to do
that you know
it also infringes on your time
and open-minded you have many agents
contacting you at any time
to basically um show your property
so which means you have to keep your
property in perfect condition all the
time as if you're not
having that at the same time
you also uh make
um your your your property
uh just just
look bad because you
just it's just not humanly possible to
keep a place
in in that type of condition also
okay so
what you want to do is you want to give
the agent
a soul mandate you want to call me and
give me
a soul mandate and i'll tell you why
the reason being is this if you give me
a soul mandate on your property
i am the only person that is going to
contact you
all other agents if they want to if they
want to bring up
bring a buyer through to your property
they call me
i tell them when i've arranged a viewing
time with you
and i tell them what time
to bring the client i
share my commission with them so it does
not cost you
anything more than what it would cost
you
if you have given me an open mendes okay
so cost you the same money
but i stand in for you and i
take care of your um of your
of your of your viewings the second
thing is
you do you're only dealing with me
any agent comes in there and does
anything wrong
or inspired as anything wrong at your
place i am the only person that you are
dealing with i'm the person that you
call up and
say listen ricardo i can't believe that
this happened
doesn't this happen so let me um
can you please sort this out no one else
just me i'm gonna help you i'm your guy
all right okay okay so what you want to
do is you want to give the agent
a soul mandate you don't want to give
open mandate okay you also get higher
offers on like an
unlike a sol minute any agent that you
speak to is going to tell you
that the that the properties are sold
mandates
selling the fastest time at the highest
price and the reason for this is that i
as your agent i have
the time
to negotiate you the best deal
you are my client and i have the time to
negotiate the pistol for you
if you give me an open mandate
i am rushing to present an
offer and don't have the time to
negotiate and the reason is
very simple if another agent from agency
b
she just also brought a buyer around or
bought a buyer on a few days ago and the
buyer put in an offer
and he presents an offer to you which
you sign
five minutes before i came with this
offer even if my offer was a better
offer
i have lost out i have lost the sale i
have lost my entire
investment of marketing in your property
so when i'm gonna open mandate i am
under pressure to present the offer
and not under pressure to negotiate the
best deal for you
now do you want the best deal or do you
want
a any deal
five minutes earlier well that's
basically up to you the last thing i
want you to consider is the team
that the agent works for now most
experienced and successful agents
do not work alone they work with a team
while you may only meet
the particular agent in person and that
might be the person that's always
bringing around the buyers always
talking to them
always talking to you you the
the really good agents have got teams of
professionals
people that basically um number one
handle their diaries
um i have i have an assistant to do that
handles the phone have another system to
do that
um they have um
teams that uh help them to draw up
reports
but they in personal contact with you on
the
on the feedback of your viewings and on
the performance of your property on the
various
marketing portals and um
on the recommendation um
of the next move in order
to increase your market exposure or to
or to get your
your property sold quickly and that will
basically be my job
okay so these are the best agents have
teams
and so you want to consider that as well
also extended parts of the
of the agents team would be um
uh the the bond originators and the
banks and other people that arranged the
finance
for the buyers they are also considered
part of the estate agent's agent's team
um and they handle specifically that
and then you also got the conveyancing
team now you as the sally you can choose
the conveyancer once you've accepted an
offer
um that could be a buddy of yours and
someone that you've worked with before
or if you do not know anybody your
your estate agent or myself would be
excited to basically introduce you to
to someone that we could refer you to
and the reason that we would refer you
is because this would be
a firm that we had worked with before
and
um have a good relationship with our on
a
very very good um one
personal basis with them so we get
things done quicker and faster
we understand each other very very well
now
um in short to sell you property fast
please understand that you don't do this
every day
the estate agent does
number two you need um
you need an estate agent worth a good
track record yes
i forgot to mention this always ask your
estate agent for
three referrals you know referrals could
be buyers or sales it
doesn't matter services service but the
thing is
asking for clients that have used this
service recently
that he can detect it that you can call
if your estate agent
doesn't want to give you a con give you
clients to call
what is he going to hide you know
you are deserving of the best service
or referrals so once again to sell your
property first
get yourself an estate agent give them a
sell
mandate um like you know uh
work with them to get your property um
to get your property sold
listen to them and happy
moving it's as simple as that people
you