The client

A young family who were looking for their next home for their growing family. They had purchased in the area previously (which was now being used as an investment property), and were living in a less than ideal rental.

They had spent months browsing and looking at properties. They felt priced out of the Redfern / Surry Hills lifestyle where they wanted to be. They’d even gone to look a properties up at Newcastle wondering if they could commute to the city a few times a week.

We sat down to talk about locations, apartments, strata schemes and everything in between. I knew there was opportunities for them with a few tweaks to their requirements and so we started the search.

What was most important to the client

• Location - they wanted to Surry Hills / Redfern lifestyle that they’d had for the past few years

• Ideally not close to housing commission

• A ground floor outdoor area for the safety of toddlers

• Ideally a surface level renovation required in the next few years - they have a keen eye for detail and I’d seen the renovation they’d completed on another property

• A minimum 3 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 1 parking

• The smaller the strata the better

The search

Within 24 hours of starting the search I had inspected a property that ticked every box they had. The only caveat to that was that the size of the strata scheme was larger than they’d have liked, but more on that later.

It was pre-market and we had an opportunity to buy pre market. I took my clients through and they agreed it was great. We ordered the strata report, got the contract and we were heading towards making an offer.

One of the clients (they were a couple), hadn’t realised that their finance was subject to the sale of another property he owned in QLD and the property was currently up for sale, but not actually sold. This was a late in the day spanner in the works to say the least. It basically meant they weren’t in a position to make an offer - conditional or unconditional. They needed to be sure the QLD property would sell.

I worked with the real estate agent to hold this deal together.

The property went ‘on market’ as the owner could not wait for us. It was winter and mid 2023 - the market was in a stable place. The property was tenanted and did not present very well (the photos below are digitally styled and not how it looked). There was a lot of fish tanks, a number of rugs over rugs over carpet, and just a lot of furniture in the apartment. All of this worked in our favour.

For four long and agonising weeks of open homes, I used my relationship with the agent to stop her from selling it to someone else. I knew my clients wanted to buy it, but we were in a holding pattern until QLD sold.

Finally the QLD property sold and we were in a position to make an offer. At this stage, we also had significant bargaining power on price.

The property

The address is Waterloo, but it is 250m to the border of Redfern and sits comfortably amongst the Danks St vibe.

It is a large ground floor apartment with 3 bedrooms, two bathrooms, two car spaces and an oversized courtyard that is north east facing. It absolutely needed some TLC in terms of painting and flooring before you would move in. The kitchen and bathrooms were dated but functional and could be put aside for renovation down the track.

It is part of a larger strata scheme which is not ideal, but as avid swimmers my clients appreciate the pool in the complex.

The outcome

With the QLD property finally sold we were ready to move forward. The Waterloo property had been through the on market campaign and not sold so while we had carried the risk (because we had to), we were now in a position to leverage that on price.

We negotiated fiercely and came out tens of thousands of dollars under the initial price guide. Not to mention if they property had been presented like the digital styling, it would have sold for well over the guide.

As if that wasn’t enough either, we came out over $200,000 less than my clients were pre approved the spend (and thought they had to spent to be able to buy what they wanted in this area).

Learnings

If you are set on a specific suburb or location that is ok - but make sure your search does include properties that are immediately adjacent to that. Here, we purchased a mere 250m from where my clients were searching and were priced out.

What the client said