It might be tempting to think that if a property is being managed by a real estate agent that you can sit back, relax, and assume all is well. It’s not a perfect world. Information may get mislaid, information known by one person may not be passed on when there are staff changes, and as a client your ideas on how the property is managed may also change. Of course, I’m assuming the agent does take notes and does keep a file of your instructions. That assumption could be wrong. At any rate, it might be useful to talk to the agent, and to make sure they take note of what you are saying, because they get things wrong. It might even be a good idea, if possible, to read through the agent’s notes on the property before they start talking to any potential new tenants.
My property is not dual occupancy. The electricity and water supplies each come from a single meter. The units are separate. Each unit has its own kitchen, lounge, and bedrooms. The rented one has its own bathroom. The laundry is shared, with the other unit (ours) having a combined bathroom and laundry. The combined bathroom laundry is inconvenient for all concerned, but within limitations, it works.
At about the time our first tenant was moving out and the new tenant was inspecting the property a new property manager took over. That was bad timing. As the new property manager was showing potential punters through the place she misunderstood the laundry arrangement. She was aware that the laundry was down stairs, but she didn’t have a key to show anyone through it. However, the property manager was telling people there was a laundry with a washing machine. Wrong! This statement was only partly correct.
There certainly was a laundry down stairs, but a washing machine was not provided. The agent should have said something along the lines, there is a laundry downstairs for your own washing machine. The result of this was that the new tenant thought a washing machine was included in the rental and had her own washing machine transported to Canberra. Of course, when the new tenant had taken out the lease and saw the laundry empty it meant she had to organise transporting her machine from Canberra back to the coast. This sets a very poor impression.
The property manager should have been aware of the situation, and a quick check of their notes would have identified the issue before it became a problem. This might seem like a small issue, but it would have inconvenienced the tenant. Perhaps there are just better property managers and poorer managers out there and you just have to be on your guard.
Showing posts with label property descriptions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label property descriptions. Show all posts
17 January 2011
16 July 2008
The previous owner
K, the previous owner dropped by. She promised to pick up some gym equipment that had been left behind in the carport. She also spoke about arranging to finish some carpentry work on our wardrobes. The stuff in the carport was no problem at all. We had left a ton of stuff in Melbourne. That was not an issue to us. However, the wardrobe situation was troublesome.
Despite promising that work on the wardrobes would be finished before we moved into the house the work had not been completed. The mirrored doors had been fitted, and while the wardrobes were new, which was nice, it would have been better had the job been completed. Some of the railings were missing from the inside, and the drawers needed fascias to be fitted to improve their appearance. Wardrobes are pointless if you can’t hang your clothes in them.
Despite promising that work on the wardrobes would be finished before we moved into the house the work had not been completed. The mirrored doors had been fitted, and while the wardrobes were new, which was nice, it would have been better had the job been completed. Some of the railings were missing from the inside, and the drawers needed fascias to be fitted to improve their appearance. Wardrobes are pointless if you can’t hang your clothes in them.
23 May 2008
The inspection
I called around to the Flynn house around 5.30pm as arranged to inspect the work that had been done, which was a bit pointless as the wardrobe doors had not yet been fitted. That was rather disappointing, as it was promised to be done. Some work had been done, but it was unfinished. People shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep.
I met K, one of the owners of the house, and she ran through a few things in the house. She showed me the laundry, which had had some work done and wasn’t quite finished. There were still a few tidy up things to do. She worked in a kitchen renovation company, and I presume she was able to use these contacts to get some work done on the house, and the laundry revamp was one of the renovations in progress, which was nice. And why wouldn’t you do that if you worked at a place like that. And of course, the kitchen itself had been renovated not long previously by the look of it. The kitchen floor looked better than it had done when I saw the place last during the inspection. Areas of the floor had been revarnished. It appeared as though there had been a few spillages of varnish on the floor that had been allowed to dry, as some areas of varnish on the floor looked to be much thicker in areas than in others. They didn’t do the entire floor for some reason. I wonder why they stopped part way through the dining room. Anyway, it’s something that can be done again later.
K produced a letter while I was there to say the robe doors would be completed. She seemed concerned at their absence, and presumably this letter of commitment was to make me feel at ease. She was probably embarrassed. I was disappointed it hadn’t been done, but she seemed genuine enough.
We had a chat. She was very chatty, in fact. She promised to steam clean the carpets to remove the stains. She said the stains were just surface marks and would be easily removed.
I couldn’t stay. It was getting late. I was in a hurry to pick up some removalist cartons that I had arranged through work, and then I was off to Melbourne. I was aware the drive from Canberra to Melbourne was about eight hours for me. I didn’t want to be driving too far into the early hours. K seemed oblivious of my need to keep this visit short. It would have been nice to have spent time there studying the property and chatting to the owner; there could have been things that would have been useful to know about the property, but I had to go.
I made my second visit for the evening to someone’s house who worked in the place I work. They had some removalist cartons they no longer needed which I wanted. I loaded my little EXA brimful of folded cardboard boxes and was off arriving at Warrandyte at about 2.00am. What a day.
I met K, one of the owners of the house, and she ran through a few things in the house. She showed me the laundry, which had had some work done and wasn’t quite finished. There were still a few tidy up things to do. She worked in a kitchen renovation company, and I presume she was able to use these contacts to get some work done on the house, and the laundry revamp was one of the renovations in progress, which was nice. And why wouldn’t you do that if you worked at a place like that. And of course, the kitchen itself had been renovated not long previously by the look of it. The kitchen floor looked better than it had done when I saw the place last during the inspection. Areas of the floor had been revarnished. It appeared as though there had been a few spillages of varnish on the floor that had been allowed to dry, as some areas of varnish on the floor looked to be much thicker in areas than in others. They didn’t do the entire floor for some reason. I wonder why they stopped part way through the dining room. Anyway, it’s something that can be done again later.
K produced a letter while I was there to say the robe doors would be completed. She seemed concerned at their absence, and presumably this letter of commitment was to make me feel at ease. She was probably embarrassed. I was disappointed it hadn’t been done, but she seemed genuine enough.
We had a chat. She was very chatty, in fact. She promised to steam clean the carpets to remove the stains. She said the stains were just surface marks and would be easily removed.
I couldn’t stay. It was getting late. I was in a hurry to pick up some removalist cartons that I had arranged through work, and then I was off to Melbourne. I was aware the drive from Canberra to Melbourne was about eight hours for me. I didn’t want to be driving too far into the early hours. K seemed oblivious of my need to keep this visit short. It would have been nice to have spent time there studying the property and chatting to the owner; there could have been things that would have been useful to know about the property, but I had to go.
I made my second visit for the evening to someone’s house who worked in the place I work. They had some removalist cartons they no longer needed which I wanted. I loaded my little EXA brimful of folded cardboard boxes and was off arriving at Warrandyte at about 2.00am. What a day.
14 April 2008
Another nothing weekend
It was a very disappointing weekend. I suppose everyone is on the lookout for a bargain, and no one wants to pay more than they have to for a property. Hell, I’ll settle for a fair price for a fair deal, but there weren’t many out there that I saw.
It almost seemed that to get a decent place you have to pay $500,000+. An okay place is about $400,000. Roughies are in the $300s. There are probably exceptions, and it depends where you buy, but they eluded my search. I wish people would be a bit more honest when they advertise their places.
We are still getting a lot of people through our own property. It feels so weird to be house hunting here in Canberra, strolling through houses for sale and thinking there are other people strolling about my place in Melbourne. What we need is to find someone who lives in Canberra and wants to live in Melbourne; then we can do a house swap.
S was chatting to our real estate agent after the inspection, just before she was about to drive off, when some latecomers called by. They went through by themselves. Things are getting very casual.
It almost seemed that to get a decent place you have to pay $500,000+. An okay place is about $400,000. Roughies are in the $300s. There are probably exceptions, and it depends where you buy, but they eluded my search. I wish people would be a bit more honest when they advertise their places.
We are still getting a lot of people through our own property. It feels so weird to be house hunting here in Canberra, strolling through houses for sale and thinking there are other people strolling about my place in Melbourne. What we need is to find someone who lives in Canberra and wants to live in Melbourne; then we can do a house swap.
S was chatting to our real estate agent after the inspection, just before she was about to drive off, when some latecomers called by. They went through by themselves. Things are getting very casual.
01 April 2008
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.
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.
08 February 2008
How do you tell if you have asbestos?
The simple answer to that is that you can’t tell. Well, not easily. You could take a sample of the suspect material and have it analysed. You could try to find the original plans and specifications for the building. There may be notes that indicate what materials were used. This is of course almost wishful thinking.
I gather calculating the material’s density can determine what substance is used in the building. There are probably other tests. However, no house owner is going to let you take samples, and would you want to do this anyway? Drilling or cutting asbestos is the last thing you should do. Have a look at this guy in the picture taking a sample. I’m not prepared to do this, are you? And this guy in the photo is protecting himself. There is no accounting for the dust that goes floating around the room for other people to breathe.
Asbestos sheets, as well as any other structural
sheets, will have identification of some kind stamped on the sides. If you can read the label you should be able to determine what you’ve got. Though, the term Villaboard doesn’t really scream danger to anyone. The trouble is that the eaves will probably be painted, obscuring any labelling. You could climb onto the roof, remove a few tiles and look for the label on the unpainted in-roof side of the eaves. Once again, the owner is unlikely to allow this. And if the roof has been constructed from sheet metal your only option might be an in roof inspection, but if you climb into the attic you will find that the roof line intersects with the external walls, allowing only a gap of a few inches clearance. The clearance is essentially the dimensions of the roof trusses; a gap not nearly wide enough to squeeze your head and shoulders through to have a look. The only way of inspecting the eaves would be with some sort of remote video camera, possibly along the lines of what surgeons use in key-hole surgery. The chances of being able to read any labelling would be made difficult due to the build up of dirt and dust that’s in the roof space.
It’s all very depressing.
I gather calculating the material’s density can determine what substance is used in the building. There are probably other tests. However, no house owner is going to let you take samples, and would you want to do this anyway? Drilling or cutting asbestos is the last thing you should do. Have a look at this guy in the picture taking a sample. I’m not prepared to do this, are you? And this guy in the photo is protecting himself. There is no accounting for the dust that goes floating around the room for other people to breathe.
Asbestos sheets, as well as any other structural
sheets, will have identification of some kind stamped on the sides. If you can read the label you should be able to determine what you’ve got. Though, the term Villaboard doesn’t really scream danger to anyone. The trouble is that the eaves will probably be painted, obscuring any labelling. You could climb onto the roof, remove a few tiles and look for the label on the unpainted in-roof side of the eaves. Once again, the owner is unlikely to allow this. And if the roof has been constructed from sheet metal your only option might be an in roof inspection, but if you climb into the attic you will find that the roof line intersects with the external walls, allowing only a gap of a few inches clearance. The clearance is essentially the dimensions of the roof trusses; a gap not nearly wide enough to squeeze your head and shoulders through to have a look. The only way of inspecting the eaves would be with some sort of remote video camera, possibly along the lines of what surgeons use in key-hole surgery. The chances of being able to read any labelling would be made difficult due to the build up of dirt and dust that’s in the roof space.It’s all very depressing.
06 February 2008
Asbestos
I had an interesting dialogue going on by email with the agent over the house I’d spotted in Bonython, when I was in Melbourne. There is asbestos in the house, which ruled it out for us. I’d prefer not to have a house built using asbestos if it can be avoided.
Interestingly, whilst its use in the building industry has been discouraged for about the last 15 years, and even though the house was built in 1992, it has asbestos in it. I was surprised to learn that in Australia, asbestos has only been banned for the last few years. A new (or newer) house is to be considered.
Is there asbestos in your house? Yes? No? Are you sure? Have a look at this web site.
This Bonython exercise has been quite an eye opener. In Canberra, building reports are mandatory. A very comprehensive report has to be made available to prospective buyers. This is an excellent service. The report for the Bonython property included a statement from the owner saying with words to the effect that there was no asbestos in the building as far as they were aware. Well, that qualifier leaves the issue wide open. It’s a pointless statement. A waste of paper. If the content of these reports provides limited information the value of the report is diminished. Similar statements regarding asbestos came up in the report at various places, all of which generally noted a supposed absence of asbestos. Then I made an interesting observation in the report.
There were some building plans included in the report. Building plans are generally large sheets of paper. Well, the ones I’ve seen are. Think: architect’s easel. But the copy in the report had been photo reduced to the standard A4 paper size. Consequently, the hand written text was faint and difficult to read. But with a magnifying glass, and a sense of Sherlock Holmes about me, I managed to make out the word: Villaboard.
The eaves were labelled in the plan to have been constructed of Villaboard. Some sort of sheeting used to build villas? I don’t think so. A trade name obviously, but what is it? The web comes into its own, at times. Villaboard is an asbestos product manufactured by James Hardy.
It’s easy to imagine builders having large stocks of asbestos sheeting back in the mid-1980s being hesitant to dump their stocks simply because its use was being discouraged. No one willingly throws away money. And if you can afford to buy bulk to save costs, why wouldn’t you? Builders would be using up their old stock. So, with a ban only taking effect from 2004 onwards there is a chance that any house built earlier than 2004 will contain asbestos. An unpleasant thought. No doubt the closer to 2004 the construction date of your house was, the less likely you are of having asbestos in the house, but it is possible.
And have you been thinking about newer properties; perhaps an apartment? Think again. I was surprised to see a note on the ACT govt web site that “the first compliance date is on 1 September 2008 for multi-storey buildings.” So much for anyone considering moving into a high rise apartment building as a way of escaping asbestos. There is a good chance you’ll still be living with asbestos for years to come. The legislation will affect different types of structures in stages. The legislation will come into effect progressively in the coming years, with community or recreational premises not being obliged to be constructed without asbestos until late in 2010.
I feel quite depressed, now. There's plenty on the web on asbestos. Try this.
Interestingly, whilst its use in the building industry has been discouraged for about the last 15 years, and even though the house was built in 1992, it has asbestos in it. I was surprised to learn that in Australia, asbestos has only been banned for the last few years. A new (or newer) house is to be considered.
Is there asbestos in your house? Yes? No? Are you sure? Have a look at this web site.
This Bonython exercise has been quite an eye opener. In Canberra, building reports are mandatory. A very comprehensive report has to be made available to prospective buyers. This is an excellent service. The report for the Bonython property included a statement from the owner saying with words to the effect that there was no asbestos in the building as far as they were aware. Well, that qualifier leaves the issue wide open. It’s a pointless statement. A waste of paper. If the content of these reports provides limited information the value of the report is diminished. Similar statements regarding asbestos came up in the report at various places, all of which generally noted a supposed absence of asbestos. Then I made an interesting observation in the report.
There were some building plans included in the report. Building plans are generally large sheets of paper. Well, the ones I’ve seen are. Think: architect’s easel. But the copy in the report had been photo reduced to the standard A4 paper size. Consequently, the hand written text was faint and difficult to read. But with a magnifying glass, and a sense of Sherlock Holmes about me, I managed to make out the word: Villaboard.
The eaves were labelled in the plan to have been constructed of Villaboard. Some sort of sheeting used to build villas? I don’t think so. A trade name obviously, but what is it? The web comes into its own, at times. Villaboard is an asbestos product manufactured by James Hardy.
It’s easy to imagine builders having large stocks of asbestos sheeting back in the mid-1980s being hesitant to dump their stocks simply because its use was being discouraged. No one willingly throws away money. And if you can afford to buy bulk to save costs, why wouldn’t you? Builders would be using up their old stock. So, with a ban only taking effect from 2004 onwards there is a chance that any house built earlier than 2004 will contain asbestos. An unpleasant thought. No doubt the closer to 2004 the construction date of your house was, the less likely you are of having asbestos in the house, but it is possible.
And have you been thinking about newer properties; perhaps an apartment? Think again. I was surprised to see a note on the ACT govt web site that “the first compliance date is on 1 September 2008 for multi-storey buildings.” So much for anyone considering moving into a high rise apartment building as a way of escaping asbestos. There is a good chance you’ll still be living with asbestos for years to come. The legislation will affect different types of structures in stages. The legislation will come into effect progressively in the coming years, with community or recreational premises not being obliged to be constructed without asbestos until late in 2010.
I feel quite depressed, now. There's plenty on the web on asbestos. Try this.
11 December 2007
Walking is faster than email
My brilliant idea of taking a lot of happy snaps of the properties that might have potential and emailing them home turned out to be less than satisfactory. I think it’s pathetic in this world of computers that I’m being driven to use snail mail.
I took about a hundred photos of a property that caught my eye. My plan was to move in and around every room, hallway, carport, shed and drainpipe putting together a virtual tour of the house in the form of photographs. It actually takes a surprising amount of time to do this. I would then email the lot along with a few comments. The size of the file didn’t break the email, but it just refused to go. Too big, was the smug response from the computer (actually, the company mail server). I tied splitting the stuff into a lot of smaller files, zipped in various ways, but still too big. I gave up, and copied everything onto a disk, and let Australia Post do its trick.
Sometimes I get really fed up with the way organisations run their IT infrastructure, and this is just one example. One of the companies I had an association with had a contract with DHS, a state government department. Both had offices very close to each other, being just one city block distant. Anyway, this company was bought out by GE, an American company with tentacles all over the world. As part of restructuring its new acquisition, email was routed through GE’s network, which meant that sending an email from one Melbourne city block to the next Melbourne city block went via USA.
We become accustomed to email being relatively fast, but with this company change sometimes email took several hours to be delivered. When time was important sometimes it was more efficient to walk across the street with an envelope in hand, to their offices, and hand deliver the mail rather than using email. Pass the ink and quill, please, it may be quicker. While I’m in the mood for it, another example comes to mind.
The first personal computer I used at work in 1986 was in fact a Mac. (Mainframes were generally all the go, but they could be cumbersome.) The Mac was on a trolley so whoever needed to use it could wheel it from one office to the next. MS Works was the thing at the time, and to get it going you shoved in floppy disk and I think you could save your files to this disk too. There was no hard drive on this machine.
Then the developers of MS Works added bits and pieces to the software, and the new version of MS Works resided on two floppy disks. So, whenever you needed to use a function that it couldn’t find on the disk you currently had in the machine, you’d be prompted to swap disks, and swap disks, and swap disks. It’s not such a bad thing to improve software, but I hate the tradeoffs you get lumbered with. Your computer gets filled with stuff you’ll never use and it slows everything down in the process.
I have broadband on at home and it seemed great, at the time, when it was new to me. But it doesn’t seem great anymore. I have this feeling that about 10 years ago my old dialup modem used to access web pages and paint the screen at about the same speed as my broadband does now. I can’t help wondering about all the ancillary software that web pages come encumbered with that everything has slowed down again.
I took about a hundred photos of a property that caught my eye. My plan was to move in and around every room, hallway, carport, shed and drainpipe putting together a virtual tour of the house in the form of photographs. It actually takes a surprising amount of time to do this. I would then email the lot along with a few comments. The size of the file didn’t break the email, but it just refused to go. Too big, was the smug response from the computer (actually, the company mail server). I tied splitting the stuff into a lot of smaller files, zipped in various ways, but still too big. I gave up, and copied everything onto a disk, and let Australia Post do its trick.
Sometimes I get really fed up with the way organisations run their IT infrastructure, and this is just one example. One of the companies I had an association with had a contract with DHS, a state government department. Both had offices very close to each other, being just one city block distant. Anyway, this company was bought out by GE, an American company with tentacles all over the world. As part of restructuring its new acquisition, email was routed through GE’s network, which meant that sending an email from one Melbourne city block to the next Melbourne city block went via USA.
We become accustomed to email being relatively fast, but with this company change sometimes email took several hours to be delivered. When time was important sometimes it was more efficient to walk across the street with an envelope in hand, to their offices, and hand deliver the mail rather than using email. Pass the ink and quill, please, it may be quicker. While I’m in the mood for it, another example comes to mind.
The first personal computer I used at work in 1986 was in fact a Mac. (Mainframes were generally all the go, but they could be cumbersome.) The Mac was on a trolley so whoever needed to use it could wheel it from one office to the next. MS Works was the thing at the time, and to get it going you shoved in floppy disk and I think you could save your files to this disk too. There was no hard drive on this machine.
Then the developers of MS Works added bits and pieces to the software, and the new version of MS Works resided on two floppy disks. So, whenever you needed to use a function that it couldn’t find on the disk you currently had in the machine, you’d be prompted to swap disks, and swap disks, and swap disks. It’s not such a bad thing to improve software, but I hate the tradeoffs you get lumbered with. Your computer gets filled with stuff you’ll never use and it slows everything down in the process.
I have broadband on at home and it seemed great, at the time, when it was new to me. But it doesn’t seem great anymore. I have this feeling that about 10 years ago my old dialup modem used to access web pages and paint the screen at about the same speed as my broadband does now. I can’t help wondering about all the ancillary software that web pages come encumbered with that everything has slowed down again.
26 October 2007
Just getting started
So far my house-mate has almost been invisible. In the last few days I haven’t seen a soul. She leaves for work early and I don’t see her in the evening. It’s as though I have rented a house for the cost of a room. This means things are a bit quieter than I expected, but there are no fights over who watches what on the telly.
There was a house in the next street to ours in Melbourne that was up for sale. I had a look at the photos of it on the web, and it seemed a tad run down; particularly the kitchen. S went to the open inspection and thought the place was much worse than the pictures showed. It’s good to have a look at the opposition; to help set the price. Don’t just rely on what real estate agents might say. They can be wildly wrong, either setting the price too high or low to suit their own ends.
The kitchen cabinets were pretty bad apparently, but looked mostly okay in the photographs. I wonder if they were touched up. So there’s a concern: how do you advertise your place, which includes photos as well as the description, that shows it off well but doesn’t exaggerate. In some ways the photographer needs to use a wide angle lens to capture everything that’s on offer, but sometimes when you get to a place thinking it was a certain size only to discover the reality is vastly different. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because everyone else does it. Do you do anything to get the punters coming around and risk them being disappointed, or do you adopt a more honest approach and show pictures that are as true as you can get them. I don’t know if there is an answer to that. No one is going to point out the flaws when selling, but I would err on the side of honesty in my descriptions.
There was a house in the next street to ours in Melbourne that was up for sale. I had a look at the photos of it on the web, and it seemed a tad run down; particularly the kitchen. S went to the open inspection and thought the place was much worse than the pictures showed. It’s good to have a look at the opposition; to help set the price. Don’t just rely on what real estate agents might say. They can be wildly wrong, either setting the price too high or low to suit their own ends.
The kitchen cabinets were pretty bad apparently, but looked mostly okay in the photographs. I wonder if they were touched up. So there’s a concern: how do you advertise your place, which includes photos as well as the description, that shows it off well but doesn’t exaggerate. In some ways the photographer needs to use a wide angle lens to capture everything that’s on offer, but sometimes when you get to a place thinking it was a certain size only to discover the reality is vastly different. Perhaps it doesn’t matter, because everyone else does it. Do you do anything to get the punters coming around and risk them being disappointed, or do you adopt a more honest approach and show pictures that are as true as you can get them. I don’t know if there is an answer to that. No one is going to point out the flaws when selling, but I would err on the side of honesty in my descriptions.
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