Fair play in contracts

You have found the home you want to buy and live in. You both love it. You sign a contract at a negotiated price. Two days after signing the Contract you phone and ask the agent if a Parent can inspect the property.

What is the problem with this you ask? The problem arises when buyers lose respect for the seller, in one case I had nine relatives inspect a property after a couple had signed a Contract. Legally, you are not entitled to return to the property until the Pest and Building is being conducted. I do not however, see the point in delaying the process, so usually agree to the Parent inspecting. Let me tell you that in my many years of experience the result of this is inevitably a crashed Contract.

If you do not involve your Parents in the process of signing a Contract by asking the Agent for a second inspection prior to signing the Contract, the Parent, or interested party feels slighted and will always find fault with the property – either correctly or incorrectly is of no importance.

My advice to young Buyers is always ask for a second inspection prior to signing a Contract. At that second inspection have all parties whose opinion you respect attend. Sellers get very (understandably) irate when a Contract crashes after 21 days on finance when no pest and building has been ordered and no valuation has been conducted, which would suggest that after the Parent or interested party has inspected you have changed your mind. The writing is already on the wall, so why wait until the 21st day to advise the Seller’s?

Pest and Building inspections are another bone of contention, a number of Buyers are using it as a further negotiating tool on the price. This is not the purpose of a Pest and Building, unless of course there is something that we as Agents and quite often the Owner themselves are not aware of – such as structural problems. You should act reasonably. If you are told a property has a fibro roof, then do not come back and ask for $15,000 off the price to replace the roof.

All Contracts are positioned in favour of the Buyer. You have 14 or 21 days to organise finance and have building and pest inspections. There is also a five working day cooling off period which applies to every Contract. The Seller on the other hand cannot change their mind, which occasionally happens.

Enjoy the experience of looking for your new home, make sure all interested parties are aware that you are thinking of purchasing and ensure they too have seen the property and agree with you on the purchase. Buying a new home should not become a war zone between Seller, Buyer and Agent. Each party must respect the other and a fair price will be paid. The whole experience can and should be very enjoyable.

Focus on Moorooka

My main areas of specialty are Moorooka, Coopers Plains, Salisbury and surrounding areas. I have lived in these areas for many many years providing me with the expert (some would call bias!) advice on these great value suburbs. I thought today I would share with you some interesting facts on Moorooka. My children were happily brought up in Moorooka attending the local school St Brendan's and playing footy at the local St Brendan's football club.



Moorooka (population 8,576) is a suburb of Brisbane. Bordering with Toohey Forest Park, it is seven kilometres south of Brisbane's central business district.

History
The word Moorooka is an indigenous word, either meaning 'iron bark', referring to the numerous iron bark trees in the area, or 'long nose', referring to Mt Toohey at the suburb's periphery.

Transport
The rail line to Robina on the Gold Coast forms the western border of the suburb. Commuter trains on the Beenleigh line stop at Moorooka railway station. Between the 1930s and 1969, trams ran along Beaudesert Road, thence along Ipswich Road to the City. The suburb continues to be well served by Brisbane Transport buses, namely the 116 Rocklea-Moorvale service, the 117 Acacia Ridge-City Valley Service, the 124 Sunnybank-City service, and the 125 Garden City-City Valley service. There is a zone border crossing at the Beaudesert Road shops, popularly known as Moorvale, for transport zones 2 and 3.

Education
Moorooka is serviced by two kindergartens and primary schools, the non-denominational Moorooka State School at Beaudesert Road, and the Roman Catholic St Brendan's at Hawtree Street. Moorooka State School is the oldest of the two, being founded in 1929, and hosts an annual Festival in July. Approximately 700 students attend the School, which features a strong multi-cultural community. Prominent recent headmaster includes Mr Leo Hearn.
Moorooka is also within close proximity to TAFE colleges and the Griffith University campuses.

Religion
Moorooka has two principal churches, the St Brendan's Catholic Church at Hawtree Street (Roman Catholic), and the Church of Christ at Pampas Street and Beaudesert Road. Both feature Sunday services.

Architecture
Many of the houses are pre-war Queenslanders (on posts, with simple one floor, wooden construction), with small apartment blocks scattered through the suburb. As with many older suburbs of Brisbane, Moorooka is becoming gentrified, with many older homes now being either renovated and extended or replaced by more modern buildings. There are prime real estate areas on the top of hills, with views to the Great Dividing Range, over Archerfield in the south, Seventeen Mile Rocks to the west, Mount Coot-tha, St. Lucia and Indooroopilly to the north-west.

Shopping The principal Moorooka shopping district on Beaudesert Road, known as Moorvale, features over 100 businesses from take-aways to restaurants and coffee shops, discount stores, newsagents, dry cleaners, locksmiths, second hand and pawn shops, and a new range of businesses that serve the African community including food and groceries, hair salons, furniture shops, and halal butcheries.

Moorvale is also known for its extensive Woolworths Supermarket, at the northern end of the shopping district, which was opened in 1972 and was the largest Woolworths in Queensland at the time.

On the South end of Moorooka near the AFL club & Moorooka State Primary School located off Beaudesert Road you have Pizza Hut & Shear Image Hair & Toni's Beauty.

Moorooka also boasts being close to the new State Tennis Centre at Tennyson, just 3 kilometres away.

www.google.com.au, www.moorookalinks.com.au

I would love to see anyone's old photos of Moorooka, if you have any drop me a line.

Interesting homes!

I receive a lot of interesting forwards by email every week and I must say I do enjoy reading them, one I received last week from my sister Carol (Cags as she is affectionally called in our family) contained the following homes from around the world, aren't they amazing?

Orlando, Florida
Kansas City Public Library
The basket building Ohio
Forest Building, Darmstadt Germany
Sopot Poland

If you have seen a great email - joke, picture or interesting facts drop me a line at lyn.rowe@raywhite.com

Decluttering your home for sale

I came across a fantastic site yesterday and thought I would share it with you. Porchlight Interiors (www.porchlightinteriors.com.au) are a Brisbane based interior design duo who specialise in preparing homes for market. Just look at one of their before and after pictures:


















Isn't that a great result?

Yes you are quite right, it may have been an expensive exercise. However, if you look at the before picture as an example and simply take everything off the bench, it would still be a good result and provide a more saleable property. You see, buyers want to have the opportunity to see how they can make your home - theirs. By removing papers, bread bins, coffee machines, kettles, toasters, blenders you can make your kitchen appear cleaner, brighter and larger. This theory can be applied to all the rooms in your house.

Preparing your house for sale doesn't have to be an expensive exercise but it may require a bit of hard yakka. The rewards will come in the form of a quicker, easier sale as the property is more desireable to buyers. It will also mean a hassle-free moving process as all the hard work will be done!

There are a lot of professionals in the industry if you think your home requires a little sprucing or you don't have the time (or will in my case!) to declutter yourself, most charge an hourly rate or can quote on specifics. It really can make the sale of your home an easier process.