Showdown with the agent

A meeting with the real estate agent resulted in the price of the house being lowered. Real Estate agents are only interested in their commission. There was talk at the meeting of spending costs on advertising.

The real estate agents also produced a report showing comments the punters had made up until this point. Some were complementary, others were not. Some of which included the following:

“Steep block” Yes, this is Warrandyte. That’s what you get in a lot of Warrandyte properties. Though, I have to admit the block nearly scared me away from purchasing it all those years ago.

“Nice house” Well, thank you, whoever you were.

“Too much work required” I don’t quite know what to think of that one. I wonder if they got their properties confused. That’s easily done.

“Unsuitable for renovating” Is that because we’ve done it all.

“Clients wouldn’t like the driveway” That’s a fair comment.

“No back yard” The property layout was unusual. Most houses have a patch of lawn and shrubs in the front of their house which may account for about a third or half of the land area, with the remaining two-thirds or so as back yard, and it’s in the back yard that people will have their shed, fruit trees and vegie garden. This property had a lush vegie garden at the back, a shed at the back and the side and the car garage in the front of the property. The remaining three quarters of the land area was at the front of the house and included a levelled but small front garden. In front of that was a small orchard and ornamental trees. In front of that was a large flat parking space. In front of that was a nature reserve, then the road. The back yard was in the front yard.

“Unsuitable for kids” I wonder why. We bought it from people who had two young kids.

“Not enough parking” It was unfairly advertised as having a double garage; it had a very large single garage, with space for parking one or two cars on a flat space in front of the garage. There was also parking in front of the orchard for four vehicles. And then of course, there was the driveway itself, which is always a good place for parking.

“Small rooms” Alas, this was true.