[johnandbethcox]

I was looking at property on the Real Estate NZ website, and I don't understand the terms. Some ads have asking prices (which is what I'm used to from the US), but others say POA, Tender, Negotiation, or Auction.

What do these terms mean?

Thanks!

[clg]

POA=price on application. Prices are not given out as easily here as in the US, they don't often list a price as a starting point. A realtor will often give you a range or a price and the idea is then generally to bargain from there. Auction, is as it sounds. Tender is when offers are accpeted up until a set date and the seller then reviews offers, the idea is to get people to offer more. It is a bit difficut to try and estimate prices from ads here then compared to the US but you can get a reasonable sense of pricing from ads. You can always email realtors too when you start to get a sense of specfic areas you are looking in, they will give you ranges.

There is no such thing a buyers agent here though so you need to take what the agents say with a grain of salt, their goal is to get you to pay as much as possible for the house they are showing.

[Caroline and Dave]

Hi John and Beth,

POA means price on application. In other words you ring the estate agent and they tell you the price. It is a bit of a con because they will then give you a lot of useless talk before they let you know the price. Personaly I would avoid POA's but that is only my personal opinion.

Tender means you are asked to put in an offer and usually the best offer gets the house.

Negotiation means the price is negotiable but if you do not know the price in the first place its hard to negotiate a good deal. Its best to find out the average price in that area for the same type of house.

Auction means the house will be put up for auction which means you will be invited to bid against other people to get the house. I would personaly stick to houses where you know the price then offer lower and see what the reply is

Hope this helps

[Melza7]

I work at Harcourts, as Office Administrator and some things agents put, I am like "what does that mean!"
Man prices have gone up soooo much here, dont know how I am EVER going to get a place!

[Soon2baKiwi]

I work at Harcourts, as Office Administrator and some things agents put, I am like "what does that mean!"
Man prices have gone up soooo much here, dont know how I am EVER going to get a place!

I work for Bayleys - Adminstrator too :)

In answer to the OP's question. The first thing you should do is find out what the CV (Capital Valuation) is and work from there. You should ask the agent for this but if you don't want to talk to an agent you can find out from the local council. Although, the CV can mean anything or nothing. We had one go to auction a couple of weeks ago - the CV was $600k; it sold for $915k (6 bidders) - it all depends on the house and how many people want it. Tender and Expressions of Interest basically mean the same thing.

[wilson182]

You can look on the council web site and get the rating information. You also can look on www.qv.co.nz, but you have to pay about $30 for a valuation report. It will give you an idea of the prices comparable houses are selling for.

[johnandbethcox]

Is the only way to get a projected valuation to use the QV website? $30 (assuming that is per house) seems steep...especially when you may consider a number of houses until you find the right one...and then you have to be the winning buyer!!

Thanks all for the help in defining these terms!

[diforsyth]

There is a slightly simpler way - you can ask the agent for a list of similar properties that have have been recently sold from RPNZ although it will probably be selective to make their one look reasonable. Also ask how much the current owners paid and when i.e. last sale. You are now in a position to do some sums and see if a) the current sellers profit is in line with market value and b) it is in line with neighbours.

I looked at one house recently and the owner expected to make 40% in 3 years - between them and the agent, they really expected me to hand over my immigrant cash with no questions. The agent has now got the hump and hasn't spoken to us since - their loss!! QV report suggested that they only make about 20% over the years.

Another good starting point is to knock 10% of the asking pricing. I think a lot of valuations are based on what owners need to make in order to move on to their next house instead of what their house is actually worth - maybe the agent administrators could shed some light on this.

It has also been indicated to me that the housing market is likely to top out next year and I was to be wary of paying over the odds for the house of my dreams unless I wanted to stay in it a very long time.

I'll get off my soap box now :o

[Soon2baKiwi]

There is a slightly simpler way - you can ask the agent for a list of similar properties that have have been recently sold from RPNZ although it will probably be selective to make their one look reasonable. Also ask how much the current owners paid and when i.e. last sale. You are now in a position to do some sums and see if a) the current sellers profit is in line with market value and b) it is in line with neighbours.

I looked at one house recently and the owner expected to make 40% in 3 years - between them and the agent, they really expected me to hand over my immigrant cash with no questions. The agent has now got the hump and hasn't spoken to us since - their loss!! QV report suggested that they only make about 20% over the years.

Another good starting point is to knock 10% of the asking pricing. I think a lot of valuations are based on what owners need to make in order to move on to their next house instead of what their house is actually worth - maybe the agent administrators could shed some light on this.

It has also been indicated to me that the housing market is likely to top out next year and I was to be wary of paying over the odds for the house of my dreams unless I wanted to stay in it a very long time.

I'll get off my soap box now :o

Oh Lord! :laugh Please don't shoot the messenger :laugh

I don't know about other agencies but people coming through any of Bayley's (Maritime Square branch - I'm not speaking for anywhere else) open homes get CVs and recent sales as a matter of course. This is the way the recent sales work - I log onto REINZ and I look for an area. I then get choices - I can select a suburb, type of residence, number of bedrooms, value range and period of time. The only time I choose value is if a property has a CV of $2m, say, there's no point in looking for all values. There may be a unit in the same street that sold for $250k last week! In that case I would put in $1m+ It then comes up as a pdf and I print it off. That's what the public sees. No alterations or deletions. :) Melza7 - is this what you do?

40% profit in the last 3 years is about the going rate. The prices have gone through the roof since 2004. We bought our house in Ireland for €105k in 2004 and sold it last year for €167k - I haven't worked out the percentage exactly (can't be bothered right now) but it's not far off 40% and the NZ market and Irish market rose very steadily at the same time.

Valuations are based on the market rate for the type of house and the area. At the end of the day the agent can only advise and we have houses that won't shift becuase of unrealistic vendors. Remember too, everyone who buys a house here will probably want to move at some stage and won't they be looking to incorporate their costs into the price they receive? I know I will.

By all means offer 10% less - all offers are presented and it's up to the vendor whether or not to accept.

I'm not going to comment on house prices other than to say that in my office it's not considered likely that they're going to drop - stay fairly stagnant - yes - drop - no.

[diforsyth]

Remember too, everyone who buys a house here will probably want to move at some stage and won't they be looking to incorporate their costs into the price they receive? I know I will.

I'm not going to comment on house prices other than to say that in my office it's not considered likely that they're going to drop - stay fairly stagnant - yes - drop - no.
It just seems to be the expectation that future costs (and hefty profit) will be absorbed by the next buyer in a very short period of time - this goes against the grain of the second comment.

[Soon2baKiwi]

It just seems to be the expectation that future costs (and hefty profit) will be absorbed by the next buyer in a very short period of time - this goes against the grain of the second comment.

This isn't a new phenomena. Nor even specific to New Zealand. We have bought and sold three houses now and both of the others (one in London and one in Ireland) had the estate agent's fee factored into the sale price. The fact that the percentage is so much higher here makes that portion of the price more to take on the chin if you can't cover it. Marketing alone costs thousands. Add on the commission and you could easily be looking at a loss very quickly. That just makes people decide not to sell and if the houses are not around to buy, the ones that are get more expensive! :roll It's a vicious circle.

[willsken]

There was a link posted on here, no long ago, to a website that told you how much houses were sold for. Can't find it though. Will look again later. It was a Harcourts site I think.

[willsken]

Found it! :clap

http://selling.harcourts.co.nz/?m=/content/main/SearchProperties.ascx

[Avalon]

Is the only way to get a projected valuation to use the QV website? $30 (assuming that is per house) seems steep...especially when you may consider a number of houses until you find the right one...and then you have to be the winning buyer!!

Thanks all for the help in defining these terms!
$30 for a report on a house you want to buy and live and make a home out of in is not steep. At least not compared to paying thousands over the value for the house :confused:

I would advise if you find the house of your dreams - you then need an independant valutaion (which is a lot more than $30) and then a builders report as well.

To put this in context, we couldnt get a QV valutation as this house hadnt been sold before (Ive got one on it now as QV were offering freebies, and it shows how much we paid for the house).

Instead we paid $495 for a vaulation and $595 for a building report (higher than normal becasue its a big house and so you get charged extra). The advertised price was $650k. The Valuation said it was worth $606K, so by getting the valution we knew not to pay over that amount (saving $44K - well worth such a steep price in my book). We actually paid less than that, but thats what a vaution is worth - whatever it saves you on the price you pay (plus all the interest on the extra mortgage you didnt have to take out :clap )

[sizzlingbadger]

Another option than getting a report done each time you're interested in a house is to simply see what others are selling for in the areas. Ask the real estate agents what they've sold and how much for. Then you can gauge what you want to pay for your dream house. Also visiting as many open homes as possible you begin to understand what a property is 'worth'.

The house we're in now we didn't have a valuation done, we knew next doors had sold for more than ours and yet it's smaller but ours did need work done.
We paid what we felt was right and didn't go over our 'budget' to get it.

[Avalon]

The house we're in now we didn't have a valuation done, we knew next doors had sold for more than ours and yet it's smaller but ours did need work done.
We paid what we felt was right and didn't go over our 'budget' to get it.
Great advise! And it worth pointing out that we couldny do that - as our house isnt similar to others here, and there arent many house to compare with anyway, so for us a vaultion was an absolute nesesscity.

But as SB says - doing lots of open homes really can help you get a feel for what houses are "worth". Especailly if you know which area you are buying in. We were looking in different areas, but by doing the open home thing, we very wuickly got a rough idea of where we could get the most for our money (unfortunately it wasnt in Eastborne :( )

[diforsyth]

This isn't a new phenomena.
.....if the houses are not around to buy, the ones that are get more expensive!

I totally understand how house prices rise. There are plenty of houses on the market, some of very poor quality and, in my opinion, being speculatively bought at high prices with the plan of making quick money.

A TV program tonight, Close Up, gave the bad news (through an economist, a professor + another) that there would be a "Property Correction" in the near future. Suggestions were it may be as early as next year and with property prices dropping by maybe as much as 40%.