James Buy Sell works across Melbourne’s top-end property market from Kew to Toorak to Albert Park to Brighton, supporting you with expert advice that helps you make smart decisions.
Whether you’re buying a home, selling a property, or buying and selling simultaneously, we take care of everything for you. With more than 20 years of experience achieving standout results in all market conditions, James Buy Sell will save you significant time, money, and stress on your next property transaction.
Results speak for themselves – 95% of our transactions are for clients we’ve worked with before or referrals.
We’ll take a detailed brief and help you zero in on what you really want from your next home.
We’re specialists at finding, and buying homes others cannot, including properties that aren’t for sale. We will help you secure a home in an Expression of Interest, off market, private sale and at auction, even if the auction is this weekend. With our bespoke service, we can be as involved as suits you.
We’ll partner with you to take control of the sales process, providing end-to-end guidance and representation.
Our multi-list approach means your property is shared with several of the best agents in your area rather than listed exclusively with a single agency. Selling this way exposes your home to more buyers, attracts more offers, and delivers higher sale prices.
We’ll help you buy a new home while simultaneously selling your existing property.
Our full-service buy-and-sell model sees us liaise with agents, property inspectors, architects, banks, solicitors and more – so you don’t have to. Running concurrent buy and sell campaigns protects you against changing market conditions; we’ll negotiate same-day settlement whenever possible.
Mal travels to Africa regularly on our morechildsurgeries work. Camberwell Grammar (1976). Diploma from Swinburne (2002) and Masters Degree from RMIT (2024). 3 adult (ha) children. Ratings he has a patent for. Past member National Golf Club (3). Loves, travel and his close friends and family and as well writing – Marketnews (since 2005) and previously The Age / Melb Weekly.
Simone is a distinguished real estate professional in Melbourne, marked by extensive market knowledge, adept negotiation skills, and a deep understanding of buyers. Simone’s 16 years of experience have positioned her as a go-to expert in the Boroondara, Stonnington, and Bayside million dollar + markets. Simone loves travel and walking and her family.
Can we help you on this home or buy or sell another?
HAWTHORN 25 Hawthorn Gr
SOUTH MELBOURNE 30-31 Howe Cres
ASPENDALE 73 Nepean Highway
SANDRINGHAM 19 Kirkwood Ave
GLEN IRIS 6 Irymple Ave
SORRENTO 17 Hiskens St
SOUTH YARRA 28 Ralston St
During the first few weeks we spend time sending you properties and awaiting your feedback. After a few weeks we have hopefully a clear idea on what you want, and we then start to reduce the number of properties we send.
As we are working together to search for homes, the same goes in return – if you see any homes come up that may be off interest, feel free to text or email them over. Our preferred method of contact is in a group chat and have found WhatsApp works well for this.
All 3 Ps interact with each other – for instance if you had a specific position then we need to match price and position to the market to get what you want.
If you had a specific property and position, then we need to match price to the market to get what you want.
Or finally, if you had a fixed budget (price) and you only liked a certain style of home then we would look in different positions until we found a match between the market and you.
We rate each property out of 1000 and as a general rule anything over 600 is worth thinking about.
Anything over 750 is deemed by this system to be a very good property – to date the highest rating property has been 942 – https://www.james.net.au/rating/9-Towers-Road-TOORAK
For more detailed information: https://marketnews.com.au/ratings/
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any queries in relation to how our property ratings system works.
We will wait as long as we can before having these done – Why? Because they cost you money; Pest & Building can be $600 -$1,000 and approx. $400 for pre purchase advice from your conveyancing solicitor.
We highly recommend that these inspections and reviews are completed.
We can recommend pest and building inspectors and conveyancing solicitors to you, and in many cases book the inspections on your behalf. We do not receive any money from these suppliers; our recommendations are genuine.
You will have to pay for these yourself in advance, usually via your credit card.
We ask you some housekeeping questions
Housekeeping items | Response |
Council – [COUNCIL] – Contact via [phone] or online at [website] We recommend you contact the Planning department and the Building department to find out if there are any current plans or permits to neighbouring properties that may affect you. Should you have any concerns with the information provided we can organise (at your expense) a town planner to make enquiries on your behalf. |
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This is a conservative market and banks are being conservative with valuations – they may in fact value this home at less than what you pay and therefore you should not be too close to the edge in terms of loan to value ratios as you may have to pay a mortgage premium and in extreme circumstances not get the loan. |
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Pest and Building Inspections – we recommend these be taken out and can organise these for you on your behalf. Please advise. |
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Legal Checks – We can recommend a lawyer to conduct pre-purchase advice on your behalf. Your call of course, please advise if you would like this done. This would be best done now. |
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Settlement terms – What do you prefer? |
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Pricing – Still talking about that. |
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Deposit – 10% you will need to have this available if putting in an offer or if we are successful. Will you pay via EFT or Cheque? |
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Measurement of land – We will do this in due course – Please be advised we are not licensed surveyors. We use a trundle wheel and could easily be half a metre or so out. Please advise if you are not comfortable with the above. |
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Citizenship – Are you an Australian citizen or permanent resident? Or do you have require FIRB approval? Please provide Proof of ID eg. current Drivers Licence or Passport. |
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Finances – do you have financial approval or have your finances arranged? |
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Contract Signing – What name will the contract be in? Please provide full legal name, including any middles name(s) for whoever will be signing. Will you be able to attend the signing? If not will we need Power of Attorney? This is easy to organise – We would need your full legal names, including middle name(s) and your residential address to prepare these forms. Please advise. |
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Strategy – when are you available to discuss further? |
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There is NO cooling off if you buy at auction. Cooling-off – As a number of our negotiations are rightfully taking some time you need to understand that the cooling off laws in Victoria have changed and that you get a cooling off in most circumstances outside three business days either side of a publicly advertised auction HOWEVER, your cooling off period begins when you make the offer NOT when the agent/seller responds or accepts. So if you make an offer on Monday your cooling off expires on the Thursday irrespective of whether or not the agent has even responded to you let alone accepted. Please note that if you cool off you will forfeit part of your deposit – at this stage 0.2% of the purchase price that is $2,000 for every $million. |
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We follow a strict regime of information-gathering before we make comment. The negotiation process is fluid and dependant on all the factors that lead us to the attempt to purchase the property.
No single negotiation is the same. Although we cover a lot of non-money and money issues in a very short space of time, our aim is to assist you to make well informed, good decisions.
Before we open our mouths to the agents (and please do not open yours to the agent with regards to price), we prepare a negotiation strategy in our negotiation council where we meet with our team to discuss each property in depth (peer review). Negotiation strategies will be approved by you before anything is done.
For more detailed information including negotiation flow charts: https://marketnews.com.au/ratings/
YES. But Mal my house didn’t sell or hasn’t attracted any interest and yet you said the market is a lot better!
That’s correct my friend. Look at the graphic above. We are just turning a corner and those that are selling are at market not 10 to 20% above market. We are nowhere near 2021 yt!, but we are seemingly chortling back in that direction!
Have I gone too early?
Looking at today’s results, that’s a fair question to ask. Clearances (61%), Bidderman (1.5) — back into the no so brilliant range on the 33 auctions we covered today.
We covered 39 Auctions today as part of our 100 Auction Test to begin 2025M1. She’s Strong!
Ali and Craig Tiley had relocated to Melbourne from the US and were unfamiliar with the local property market. They were looking for support to demystify the Australian way of buying and selling property which is very different to the US model they knew.
We developed a shortlist of potential homes and a buy recommendation. By encouraging them to look beyond initial impressions and consider the inherent value of the home they chose to purchase, Ali and Craig were able to buy into a premium Brighton location two minutes from the action.
The most interesting property I’ve ever sold was 9 Towers Road, Toorak, in 2016 which at the time set the Victorian record – a little over $26 million. It was designed by Wood Marsh architects and it was so unique. There will never, ever be another one of these again. It was like a sculpture that you lived in.
[The home was sold by Daniel and Danielle Besen]
Can we help you on this home or buy or sell another?
