Listready

Money
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We are about to list our unit and the real estate agency we’ve select to go with has said they partner with a third party ‘ListReady’ to manage the marketing and staging of the property. Their website says:

The pay later solution for listing expenses.

We cover listing costs up to $35,000* upfront for marketing, staging, home improvements, repairs and more.

I have tried searching for reviews and found only reviews from real estate professionals and as it’s a new product I’m struggling to find information from vendors. We’re unlikely to use their upfront payment offer but curious to know if others have. Thanks in advance!

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Welcoming to the community @smijones.

I’m not familiar with the product but have sold several properties in recent years. It seems a very open ended and expensive scheme.

We’ve always approached multiple RE Agents and ensured we have at least three written proposals to list and sell our property, before deciding. We have also had written market assessments to help us determine what our price expectations should be.

Re marketing and other expenses. We would never commit to a marketing etc proposal that is not fixed firmly quoted. IE the costs are known.

The need to pay up front varies between agents. We have also had agents who provide standard marketing plans at no upfront cost. In one instance in a rising market we had an agent which had a large turn over. There were no additional costs to list or produce marketing material. We had a sale and contract in under 2 months.

We have always believed that the Agents need to compete firstly for our custom. They are not there to do any of us a favour. Every customer they don’t get is a sale they cannot make!

Hope you have the right agent and a suitable marketing plan.

P.S.
No comment on staging other than asking whether it adds value. With one exception the universal advice we have received from within the industry is it does not. A professional clean and tidy (remove excess) is all that is needed.

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Real Estate Agents are not your friend although they will endevour to appear that way. So get your home valued by a qualified and certified valuer so you know what you home is really worth, as opposed to the hyperbole and over-inflated estimates the real estate agents (RE) will give you to entice you to go with them. Do NOT tell the RE you have the valuation, and see how truthfull their estimates are. The ones that overinflate your home’s value, will likely end up selling it for the less than the agreed value.

You should consider including in the contract that if they sell below the agreed value, their commission will drop according to how much less you get. This should get them to put more effort into selling your home at above the agreed value.

I agree. They should also be competing on the commission they are proposing to take.

If a RE is worth their salt, they will already have a list of buyers who want to buy, so they shouldn’t need to advertise. If they need to advertise, they should bear the cost. When the RE charge you for advertising, they charge the retail cost, but they pay wholesale cost and then they get lots of rebates, advertising primarily their business with your home as another lure earns them a lot on top of the commission.

The placard outside your home is no longer the attraction it used to be. Nor are newpapers. You don’t need to bother with them or pay for them. People are now primarily using the internet to search for homes. The cost of advertising on the internet should be borne by the RE.

Totally agree. It doesn’t have to be professional if you can do a good job of it. This includes indoors and outdoors. Make you home minimalistic. It helps make it look bigger, airier, lighter, and more attractive. Sell, give away, or put all your excess it into storage until you move into a new residence.

Do not have open home exhibitions. The RE should only bring people to look at your home, one at a time, who they have prequalified as having the available finance to buy your home. That way they can focus on real potential buyers, and your home is not subject to theft (this happens a lot), gawkers, or tyre kickers.

This is how we sold our last home. We only had three sets of people go through on one day, and it was sold on that first day. Advertising cost us nothing, and we knew exactly what commission we were paying. A good deal I think.

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There are differing views on him and his ‘program’ but Neil Jenman has a following, and has written a few books on the RE Industry. Could be worth becoming familiar with…

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Their website has limited information, but one of the ‘endorsements’ state…

(60 days interest-free and the booking fee is only 4%).

So, the minimum fee they charge, on potentially already inflated real estate marketing activities, is 4%. This assumes the property is sold with 60 days of the pay later contract being agreed signed and not from the listing date.

Can’t find the published interest rate but assume it would be significantly more than what a bank would offer for personal banking customers and more likely to be more than the business banking rates…did the real estate provide such information or product disclose statement (PDS) to you to read and digest before potentially accepting. As it is a financial or credit service, they must give you a PDS as a minimum.

The Australian Financial Review reported for List-ready…

After a 60-day interest-free period, they incur a 1.9 per cent fee each month on outstanding amount.

This is a compounded rate of about 23% for the first year (plus the 4% initial fee). Thereafter it is an annualised interest rate of 27.7%. Ouch.

If your property takes time to sell and this extra burden may be another way real estate agents pressure their vendors to sign on the bottom line.

Also another way to pressure vendors to agree to expensive marketing campaigns as the real costs are deferred and hidden in the settling price.

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We sold our last home through the Jenman network. I highly recommend them to others, and will use them again.

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Neil Jenman sold my last property and we got a fabulous deal from his network. I can highly recommend the Jenman network for honesty and integrity for the owners.

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