Buyer Masterclass - James Market News

2011/2012 Thoughts from our Inner East and Bayside Selling Legends

BY Mal James 4th December 2011

To help us get a sense of what happened this year in Melbourne’s Top End property market, on both sides of the fence, we asked some of the greats of Melbourne real estate – our Legends – to give us their perspectives. We also asked them to take a longer historical view on how this [...]

The Risks of Chasing a Housebuying Reward

BY Mal James 8th November 2011

Negotiating on a property is all about balancing the risks with the rewards. In your quest for the reward of buying your dream home, you might run the risk of paying more than you needed to. But focusing purely on the reward of paying a lower price for a home might raise the risk that [...]

Heading for the Home Stretch

BY Mal James 27th October 2011

You’re a $M+ family home buyer. Super Saturday (October 22) has been and gone and you didn’t manage to buy yourself a home from the 150 or so properties that were on offer. What now? With the Melbourne Cup break coming up, it’s time to a) assess your form b) assess your goals c) improve [...]

Truth and Emotion

BY Mal James 15th October 2011

None of us like to be lied to or feel we’ve been fooled – and very few of us want to be beaten in a deal. Buying a home is a significant emotional experience – and for many buyers there’s an extra emotional stress when we start dealing with agents and negotiating. Selling agents are masters at [...]

How to Value the Top End in this market

BY Mal James 24th September 2011

Recently we gave a talk to more than a hundred high net worth individuals at the Sandringham Yacht Club for Peter Wilson of Godfrey Pembroke where we involved the participants in a hands-on exercise that introduced them to “valuing” high end homes. There were three steps to the process. First we asked them to give [...]

Step (Under/Over + Skilled) Quoting – Black or Noble Art?

BY Mal James 3rd September 2011

Agent Step Quoting is a contentious part of our industry: It’s how selling agents nudge buyers up the staircase towards a price their clients are hoping for. Done badly it can make buyers feel cheated and manipulated and invite accusations of under-quoting. Done well it’s a legitimate haggling process agents use to get a buyer [...]

The Block broke all the rules in the book

BY Mal James 29th August 2011

The Block was great entertainment – but for me it was also the best reality TV show in a decade because it showed the harsh reality of what happens when you break all the rules in the property investment book. I took the opportunity to go through each property a few weeks before the auctions and [...]

Expert tips The Block’s most expensive house – but says he wouldn’t be buying

BY Mal James 17th August 2011

This article first appeared on Property Observer, Australia’s top site for property investment news and advice. The projected priciest offering of the four Richmond houses on The Block is 37 Cameron Street, renovated by the hometown couple Jenna and Josh, according to James Buyer Advocates. All four properties go to auction this weekend. The buyers’ agency deemed 41 Cameron [...]

Sellers will determine Spring action

BY Mal James 10th August 2011

Well, here we are in early August – and anything that has been written about the market in the last few months has been to fill some space. Because nothing has been happening. Nothing good and nothing bad – just plain ‘ol nothing. There’s a saying in our business that the really good agents should take [...]

The Big Predictions – Part 2

BY Mal James 3rd August 2011

Last week we covered the Early Spring Market There’s no guarantee we’ll see a lift in the housing market as we go into Spring this year. On the supply side, there’s a build-up of long term unsold properties (stales) and a compounding shortage of exciting, well priced new stock. On the demand side, buyers have had [...]

The Big Predictions – Part 1

BY Mal James 28th July 2011

In the first of 2 part major report this week on The Big Spring Predictions we cover the Early Spring Market Home market predictions are like footy predictions in many ways – a bit of fun, not to be taken too seriously and to be treated on the basis of past results. Sometimes we agents get it [...]

Are buyer agents the new bad guys?

BY Mal James 20th July 2011

Each week as we go through the inbox we come across a number of what we call “love letters” from sellers who in no uncertain terms question our parentage and suggest that our eyesight and perceptions are slightly below that of an umpire in a losing Collingwood game. In a buyers’ market there are new people [...]

Is it the Deal or is it the Feel?

BY Mal James 6th July 2011

What’s more important in buying a home – the deal or the feel? In this market most buyers are focused on the deal. But if I can give the guys out there one piece of advice more profound that any Tibetan wisdom and more important than a receipt at tax time – there is a [...]

Clearance Rates, Clearance Rates, Clearance Rates.

BY Mal James 22nd June 2011

The big talk on the property market is auction clearance rates: the fact they are well below last year (true) and that they are perhaps even lower than what agents are claiming (maybe). Last year auction clearance rates across Melbourne were regularly in the 70s percentage-wise. This year they are in the 50s – so it [...]

Welcome to the winter minefield of private sale negotiations

BY Mal James 15th June 2011

Welcome to the new world. Well, not so new – it arrives every winter in Melbourne when the favourite weekend sport that is the public auction quietens down and a version of the Melbourne Club opens for the $M+ homebuying business. For four months between a certain royal’s birthday and a hoped-for Collingwood victory on [...]

Winter brings out the clever buyers

BY Mal James 8th June 2011

With the autumn property season over and the end of the headlines about record prices and huge crowds, the winter property season brings a new set of challenges for buyers and sellers. Yes, it’s a more subdued time but winter can still throw up some surprises – and some opportunities. Even in winter people still [...]