Lisa & Matthew

Introduction

Matt:
Yeah. Hey, how are you doing?

Shane:
Good, thanks. Good. Thanks for catching up with me today.

Matt:
Yeah, no problem at all.

Shane:
What I wanted to do is just tell a bit of a quick story or a bit of background on yourself, just to share with other people who might be considering working with us as a buyers agent.

Matt:
Yeah.

What situation did you find yourself in prior to us talking initially?

Shane:
Would you mind kicking off just with a little bit of background on your situation prior to you and I chatting initially? What was happening?

Matt:
Yeah. Yeah, look, no problem at all. So we moved to Brisbane a little over a year ago. So January, 2020, before the world all changed. And yeah, we’re renting, trying to own a house. Yeah, we have three kids, so we have some requirements that we are specifically after like family friendly, nice and quiet, near parks. Yeah. And we were doing the normal thing, jumping on realestate.com and trawling through and going to open houses, trying to, yeah, find something we liked. One of the main issues I think we had was the properties were just gone. You’d be half interested in it and next thing you know, it would be on the offer, which was sort of moving quicker than we were comfortable with. Yeah. Then a few months in, we were recommended your service. Yeah. Had a chat too and felt like that’s exactly what we need and jumped in and here we are. We have a house, which is great.

Had you ever heard of a Brisbane Buyers Agent before? What concerns have you had in using one?

 Shane:
Yeah. We’ll tell everyone about it in a minute. And so, obviously you’d mentioned that you hadn’t really heard of buyer’s agents before, but you’ve had quite a bit of experience in property, haven’t you?

Matt:
Yes. Yeah, over the years. Yeah, my family, we did a lot of developing in the town we’re from, in Newcastle, New South Wales. Over 10 years, we would have done more than 15 different sort of properties, all sort of sold on, we didn’t keep any of them. Yeah. And obviously had relationships with agents, because we had to sell them all. So yeah, I’ve done a lot in property and to be honest, never really knew that the buyer’s agent existed. Yeah. But glad it does, because yeah, we found it very successful.

Shane:
Yeah. No, that’s really good. Because sometimes a lot of the thoughts that people have, and I’ve done a lot in property, I kind of know [inaudible 00:02:52] things, but I guess given you’d already had that experience, obviously shows. I mean, well, we’re after ways, but I guess, were there any concerns with using this kind of service? I mean, what were the, I guess, vision points for you?

Matt:
None. Once we had that really good, and it was quite a long chat, because you sort of talked through everything. So, that initial chat where you covered everything off, I think the only concerns that we had along the way was we felt like we were being the worst clients that you’ve ever had, because our requirements were pretty tight, and you brought so many properties to us, and felt like we were saying no so often that probably you’d want to get rid of this, but yeah. Like I’ve mentioned to people, you never gave us any attitude, it was always done with a smile and very professional, and yeah, we were thankful that you were so good to us along the way.

Shane:
Mike, that was my pleasure. That’s kind of our job, to bring you more options and show you more of what’s available. So do you want to talk a bit about that experience? I mean, obviously prior, you were looking on the internet search process, I mean, were you doing anything else besides just looking online?

Matt:
No. Through looking online and talking to a few people, we did sort of get to know a few people, a few agents, but felt like, that because the market is so hot right now in Brisbane, I just felt like that they didn’t really need to call me back. They’ve got a million people wanting to buy the same property, so even if you did say put your name with someone you felt like you trusted and say, ‘Give me a call if anything like this comes up,” I just felt like they never would because they wouldn’t have to, they just list it, they get a heap of people who are interested in it, and next thing you know, they’ve got an offer and off they go. Yeah, you just feel lost in this sea of buyers trying to buy all the limited stock that’s out there.

Shane:
I have a number in the big scheme of things.

Matt:
Yeah. Honestly, it really felt like that. And especially not being from around the area and not knowing many agents, it was just going too quick for our liking.

Shane:
Fair enough. And after our chat, I mean, [inaudible 00:05:34], what was?

Matt:
Yeah, look, the main thing that we thought would work for us is your ability to access properties that aren’t on the market, and then also the ability of your experience in the property market and able to negotiate a price that’s probably going to be better than what we would negotiate. Yeah. Just, we felt like your experience on when to portion and when to accept a price, we felt like we had a lot of faith in that you knew what you were doing and knew more than what we were doing. So therefore, we were going to get the best price than we were going to get by using you. Yeah.

Shane:
Well, that’s awesome. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate it. And what about [inaudible 00:06:27], because I have been having a few conversations recently where people have similar thoughts that will… Well, sorry, some of the thoughts have been, how do you still by a property off market when the market… Why wouldn’t people go to the market? And we don’t buy every property off market, but I mean, what were your experience of working with us as we started through this set?

Matt:
Yeah. Look, obviously, you would know that we were interested in a few properties, some that were on market, some that were off market. Yeah. And look, I don’t know what people’s sort of motivation, I guess, to sell off market when they could just go to market, but I could tell you, if I was in the right frame of mind and someone knocked on the door and said, “Hey, we can sell your house for this,” why wouldn’t you? As an owner of property, why wouldn’t you take them up? You do your own research, work out that you’re happy with that price, then yeah. So we found that we were interested in both properties, but the off-market ones we tended to think were more sort of our style of property, because you located actual houses in actual streets that were what we were interested in more so than just, well, this property has been listed with this agent on this street. Yeah. So that’s sort of why in the end, I think the off-market is definitely the way to go.

Shane:
And just to give people some context, let’s just pass me, obviously I know all the answer to these bits, but I think that it helps others who might be in similar areas. I mean, looking in, what was your experience of the amount of options that you had?

Matt:
Yeah, look, we gave you quite a specific, we want a family friendly quiet, a decent sized block as we’ve come from an area where the average block of land is 1000 square meters. So obviously that’s a bit different in Brisbane. So we wanted some land, we wanted to be near the Brook, we wanted parks nearby, we wanted it to be quiet. And the big thing, we prefer the post-war home, so we can knock it over and build the house that we want. So really, obviously you can’t put all those requirements into a search filter on commercial real estate or realestate.com that I use. Yeah. And we also were quite not strict, but quite certain of the suburbs. One of the suburbs had to be around the Brock. So, yeah. So it was quite a tight little bunch of requirements for us, but yeah, it seemed like you always gave us a property to look at, that for sure, multiple properties most of the time.

Shane:
Yeah. It’s a pretty tight market through there, but I was glad we were able to find the property in the end for you that suited.

Matt:
Yes. Yeah.

What advice would you give to other people who may be considering or hesitant to use this kind of service?

Shane:
What advice would you give to other people who were kind of maybe considering this sort of service, but might have [inaudible 00:09:53], or not so sure about it. What could you say to those sorts of people? What would you say?

Matt:
Yeah, look up, I couldn’t imagine what would be their concern of using it. Yeah, I just sort of couldn’t imagine, maybe some people might look at having to pay. Because initially, I guess you think when you buy a property, you don’t have to pay agent’s fees, when you sell a property, that’s when you pay agent fees. But I can tell you now that the dollar for the service that we got was amazing. Honestly, yes, we paid for the service, but we felt like we got a lot more for our money than you did, Shane, because of how hard you worked and how many properties you found. And it took us a little while to find them, so it wasn’t just like you looked for a week and off you went. Yeah.

Matt:
So to be honest, I can’t think of any other reason why someone wouldn’t want to use it, and if the money is the thing, I can tell from our property, the price you end up getting it for, we saw a comparable style only weeks after. The property was nowhere near as nice as our property and sell for pretty much the same price. So yeah, you’ll get your money back on purchasing it, right? My father always said to me, “You make your money on property when you purchase it more so than when you sell it.” So I think, yeah, having a professional in your corner during the purchasing stage couldn’t be more important really.

Shane:
I follow that one as well, “You make your money when you buy.” That’s great.

Matt:
Yeah.

Shane:
And tell me, I’m excited to know how the house plan is progressing.

Matt:
Yeah. Really good. Yeah. We’re quite excited. We’re getting to design what we want. Yeah. And the block just… Yeah. There are so many things that are just so good about that block, with the view and the north aspect and, yeah. It’s just really cool when we get to design a house exactly the way we want, because the land’s big enough and the aspect’s right. And yeah, it’s really good. Yeah. Can’t wait to sign those. Yeah. It’s on that building contract and we see some dirt being broken, it’s going to be good.

Shane:
[inaudible 00:12:24] can’t of wait to see it as well. Mike, that was about it, unless were any other parting comments that you would like to make?

Matt:
No, look, yeah. Yeah, like I was saying just before, I can’t see why people wouldn’t want to do it. Just with how the cost is not even really a concern when the properties… You’ll save the money in the purchase of the property, plus also just a level of professionalism that you gave all the way along. There were times when we just felt so bad by going, “Oh yeah, that’s almost it, but not.” And when it looked like it, that’s going to be it, and saying no to you. You can pick up whether someone says, “Yeah, yeah it’s fine,” but when they’re actually annoyed.

We’re all human, we sense those feelings. Yeah, I can honestly say, my wife and I both 100% knew that every time we said no to you, it was, you were fine. There was no problem at all, and you just off you went to work and found more and came back and, yeah. Yeah, it was really good.

Shane:
I appreciate you guys working with me as well. Thank you so much. And also, thanks for spending some time to do this today. And, Mike, I can’t wait to see the [inaudible 00:13:46].

Matt:
Yeah. No, really excited. Yeah. It’d be great to have you over and have a beer around the pool when it’s all done, and yeah. No, I appreciate giving back, because we feel like we got more than our money’s value with you, so happy to give back and spend a bit of time helping you.

Shane:
Have a good one.

Matt:
Yeah. Great. Thanks, Shane.