Australian Real Estate Blog

Selling Real Estate - How Lawyers Do It Better #1

2010-02-13T04:07:00Z

by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd In this series of postings we examine the role of the lawyer in real estate sales, and explain why the lawyer is returning to displace the real estate agent as the primary adviser and consultant to consumers who are contemplating the sale or purchase of real estate. Why Lawyers Are The Best At Marketing Real Estate Real estate is NOT sold, it's BOUGHT Selling a refrigerator...(read more)

Australia's housing affordability myth busted

2010-01-29T05:45:00Z

Despite rising interest rates and property prices, housing affordability in Australia is not as bad as widely believed, a recent report has showed. According to Rismark National Dwelling Price-to-Income Index, housing affordability has not deteriorated; in fact, it has improved slightly over the past six years. Rismark found that over the past six years, home prices have held between 3.7 times disposable incomes and 4.3 times incomes over the past six years. Household disposable income rose 44% since...(read more)

Rental Yields Fall In Fast-Growing Areas

2010-01-25T05:20:00Z

The rapid increase in house prices in some parts of Australia has resulted in dramatic drop in rental yields in those areas according to a recent report by rpdata.com. One of the biggest surprise falls in rents occurred in the resource-rich mining town of Collinsville in North Queensland where housing yields fell by 2.4% from a yield of 9.1% a year ago to 6.7%. During the same period, median house price surged by 8.7% in the area. Newcastle's Garden Suburb recorded the second biggest drop in rental...(read more)

The Pricing Dilemma - An Agent's View

2009-12-07T22:18:00Z

OPINION by Chris Warren Licenced Real Estate Agent Chris@RemaxColonial.com.au Chris Warren is a Licensed Real Estate agent with over 20 years' experience, providing real estate services to consumers on Brisbane's inner southside. He was recently quoted in a submission to the Estate Agents Council of Victoria concerning real estate agent appraisals and the pricing of real estate, and wrote this article in response to a request for his opinion on the problems associated with the valuing and pricing...(read more)

At Loggerheads Over Seasonal Lodging

2009-12-01T21:19:00Z

OPINION by Tim O'Dwyer M.A., LL.B Solicitor Consumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au Contractual time limits which run out between Christmas and New Year should, as this Blog has previously shown, ring alarm bells for purchasers and their legal advisers. Nevertheless, neither developer Bannercorp* Pty Ltd nor its solicitors heard so much as a tingle when a critical condition in Bannercorp’s time-of-the-essence purchase contract (dated 3rd August, 2007) was mutually extended from 90 to 150...(read more)

Join the Real Estate Ethics Group

2009-11-14T06:39:00Z

by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd The purpose of the Real Estate Ethics Group is to encourage discussion on ethical issues related to the delivery of residential real estate services. In order to ensure high quality discussion and debate, the group has been created in the well-known professional network "LinkedIn". Search the internet for a place where real estate ethics are discussed in any meaningful way,...(read more)

REIV Pricing Ploy Relies On Lies

2009-10-25T10:02:00Z

by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd We now have the REIV inventing, and forcing its own legislation on real estate consumers. When will journalists, regulators, lawyers and consumers start thinking for themselves instead of simply watching Enzo Raimondo and the crew at the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) make fools of them. It's time to put vendors and purchasers back in control, and to return the real...(read more)

Book Exposes Real World Of Real Estate

2009-10-18T20:01:00Z

by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd I was watching "First Tuesday Book Club" on ABC TV a few months ago, and I saw the host, Jennifer Byrne hold up a copy of Brendan Gullifer's book SOLD. According to Byrne, " I thought it was tremendous fun. And let me tell you, you've met these people. They probably sold your house ." Having read SOLD, I can confirm that the characters and behaviours portrayed in the book...(read more)

The Ultimate Real Estate Sales Office

2009-08-29T05:23:00Z

OPINION by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd The ultimate real estate office model has arrived. It's the ILP - a lean, clean sales machine that combines the roles of lawyer, conveyancer and real estate agent to provide an optimum real estate service on a fixed fee basis. Anyone can establish an ILP, including real estate agents, conveyancers and accountants, to provide clients with a one-stop-shop for real estate...(read more)

Estate Agents - Commission Mentality Explained

2009-08-26T02:43:00Z

OPINION by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd It would seem that real estate agents are the same, all around the world. The following anecdote appears on a real estate industry blog in the United States. What makes this anecdote particularly interesting is the author's final comment " not all sales have to be 'difficult' to makes the salesman deserving. " I have often wondered as to whether real estate agents...(read more)

Call For Urgent Change

2009-08-21T02:07:00Z

OPINION by George Rousos Director Industry Training Consultants george@itc.nsw.edu.au After receiving glowing support from my clients and colleagues, it was now time to take decisive action by requesting to the NSW Minister- The Hon. Virginia JUDGE, BEd MP that urgent amendments to real estate laws in NSW be introduced in parliament. What follows is my letter to the Minister, written after my reading of the following article which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald: Watchdog raids real estate...(read more)

Did The Minister's Dog Eat Hubby's Homework?

2009-08-05T00:05:00Z

OPINION by Tim O'Dwyer M.A., LL.B Solicitor Consumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au Former corruption investigator Tony Fitzgerald QC and former premier Wayne Goss recently charged that Queensland’s Beattie and Bligh governments had let the state slide back into its “dark past”. “Ethics are always tested by incumbency”, explained Fitzgerald. “The longer any side of politics is in power, the more risk cobwebs will settle”, Goss added. Both agreed that standards had slipped during 11 years...(read more)

Queensland Lawyers Warned About Trust Account Scam

2009-08-02T23:41:00Z

OPINION by Tim O'Dwyer M.A., LL.B Solicitor Consumer Advocate watchdog@argonautlegal.com.au The Queensland Law Society has warned its solicitor members of an attempted trust account scam that had been brought to the Society’s attention. A Queensland law firm had been contacted by individuals who purported to be associated with a large international company trying to recover outstanding debts from Australian companies. The law firm was instructed not to contact the debtor company. The firm soon received...(read more)

Negligent Misrepresentation on Home Owner Contracts

2009-08-01T00:45:00Z

OPINION by George Rousos Director Industry Training Consultants george@itc.nsw.edu.au Statutory authorities must start exercising the same degree of care towards sellers as they do with buyers of properties. It was discovered and found on The NSW Office Of Fair Trading’s website, no cooling-off period applies to sellers of properties once contracts have been exchanged, sellers are generally bound to complete the agreement. (See the article "Sale Contracts" on the website of the NSW Office of Fair...(read more)

Enzo Raimondo - Auction System's Fair, You Can Quote Me

2009-07-31T06:46:00Z

OPINION by Peter Mericka B.A., LL.B Real Estate Lawyer Qualified Practising Conveyancer Victoria Director Lawyers Real Estate Pty Ltd Following on from my previous posting in which I acknowledged Enzo Raimondo, CEO of the Real Estate Institute of Victoria (REIV) as a master of the partial-truth, comes a newspaper article in which Raimondo confirms that " Much misinformation is abroad about property sales " (sic). Of course, Raimondo does not acknowledge his own role in the dissemination of this misinformation....(read more)