With my interest in pursuing a career in real estate, I thought it'd be fit to post any interesting posts and housing information for any important future reference.
I'll be regularly posting any related global real estate news, and attempt to analyse some trends in the housing market as well.
June 7th, 2008 — Real Estate Agents
If you’ve ever heard the phrase ‘leave it in the hands of professionals’, real estate is no different. The following ten reasons are why you should consider hiring a real estate agent for your property investment or venture.
1. Skilled Professionals
It’s simple - why risk getting ripped off or missing out on certain opportunities The trick is to find the right person. Simply put, don’t waste time, effort and resources doing it yourself when you don’t have the skills. They will know the way that things are run, and how the strings work, such as negotiation.
2. Intricate Real Estate Area Knowledge
An agent knows specific details that you don’t, or may simply overlook. A very cheap neighbourhood for instance may look tempting, but you may not have realized that the local council plans to divert a main road through your street, significantly plummeting the future value of your home.
3. Paperwork
Paperwork - a word (or two words if you like) that strikes interest in the hearts of very few. As well as being incredibly tedious and boring, one mistake due to your lack of experience can cost dearly in court and other legal proceedings correcting it.
4. A Built and Positive Relationship
After successfully working with your real estate agent once, they’re more likely to go out of their way to assist and help you in future, whether it be regarding legal information or finding the best deals on new houses.
June 4th, 2008 — Student Accommodation, Top Housing Lists
As students tend to have a much more narrow and linear range of necessities in their accommodation, real estate must be provided suited to their preference and needs. These include:
- Competitive rental rates of small apartments close to campus. 2 Bedroom with room for 3-5 is generally ideal, as students will tend to split the costs and live together to conserve funds.
- Closeby to campus itself, or shorting walking distance to public transport which will take them there.
- A proximity and environment where noise will not disturbs other neighbours.
- Contemporary tracking systems and new appliances for electricity and heating bills. As student accommodation will typically contain a few or more tenants, a organized and agreed on payment plan is necessary to avoid fallouts and arguments between landlords and tenants.
- Condominium suites and townhomes which require minimal maintanence.
June 1st, 2008 — Top Housing Lists
1. Clean up the backyard. This may involve more than ‘cleaning’, consider getting it redecorated if it’s a bit sloppy.
2. Clean, wipe, polish; Do whatever necessary to make your home look more appealing and bright. Don’t think that potential buyers won’t pick up on the subtlety dirty corners and under furniture where dust and crud has stockpiled.
3. Although you may be used to it or like the scent or must of your house, visitors certainly won’t appreciate it. Take out anything (i.e rugs or mats) that may be contributing to the smell and keep windows open for weeks.
4. People may not notice, you may as well get around to cleaning the gutters while everything else around the house is being worked on.
5. Install more bright, friendly and inviting lights, especially in the dimmer sections of the house.
6. Those annoying things such as creaky floorboards, ditches in the driveway and rusty door hinges finally have an excuse to be fixed. Maintain and fix them up now to create a positive impression.
7. Clean up the backyard. This may involve more than ‘cleaning’, consider getting it redecorated if it’s a bit sloppy.
8. Although people may not notice, you may as well get around to cleaning the gutters while everything else around the house is being worked on.
9. Make it look more spacious. Whether this involves storing somewhere out of view, lending it to friends to store, donating it or simply throwing away, don’t leave junk laying around, whatever the sentimental value may be.
June 1st, 2008 — Real Estate Landmarks
You hear about celebrities with their new multi-million dollar mansions, sometimes in excess of $20 million. I’m sure you’ve even heard about Michael Jackon’s Netherlands Ranch, estimated at approximately $95 million at it’s valuation in 2007.
5th Richest Man Buys 1st Billion Dollar House
Welcome in the Ambani couple - an Indian entrepreneur with a networth of an incredible $43,000,000,000+. For relative statistics… that’s the 5th richest person on the globe. His new ‘house’ valued in excess of 1 billion dollars features 27 stories at 170m, with an incredible 37,161 sq metres living space.
The interior design is supposingly also very thought out and unique, each floor designed by architectural experts from different cultures and nationalities, to give the massive mansion a more expansive feel.
May 31st, 2008 — Rental Property
It’s excellent news for rental property investors in NSW, and not so good for those renting. Suburbs in Sydney particularly, have skyrocketed to over 25% rental value since February 2008.
“It’s not like people can simply turn to buying house’s and taking out mortgages. Just because rental property is increasing, permanent real estate is not the solution. It is still much too expensive for those renting in the first place.” Real Estate Commissioner Andrew Hardensen stated.
The following are some interesting statistics in Sydney’s radius of suburbs:
Average Weekly Rent for Sydney:
- The inner suburbs of Sydney reported in the majority of cases an increase of weekly rent to $440, an increase of 2.51%.
- The mid suburbs of Sydney saw an increase of weekly rent to $360, an increase of 2.91%
- The boundary suburbs of Sydney saw an increase of weekly rent to approximately $300, an increase of 3.40%
However, increases in rental property value isn’t any drastic news. Last year along, the total percentage increase over the 3 suburb sectors was a whopping 11.8%, or a $38 overall increase.
Interestingly enough, the most popular form of rental accommodation was single bedroom apartments. If the majority of these cases are single home livers, they may want to consider more room mates to accommodate to cover costs.
This catalyst of this recent trend is fairly obvious: There is an outright lack of rental property available in Australia, particularly around Sydney. The government needs to take initiatives to release new, cheaper government rental housing to suit those in financial strain and crisis from price increases.
