Hi All,
I'm in the process of finding and buying my first home (1 bed, older stand alone unit, approx 400k budget, inner north of Melb).
I went about finding a place a little differently. Nothing currently on the market lately interested/suited me, however I noticed there are plenty of empty rentals that do, some of which I know have been up for rent for several months, even after dropping their rents pretty significantly.
I went to inspect one of these as a potential tenant before deciding to buy, so I reached out directly to the the property owner asking if they'd be interested in selling, and turns out they are. Really i'm not surprised as its been on the market empty for about 3 months, and they've dropped the rent and changed agents already (and rents continue to drop).
So now we are moving towards a private sale without the RE being involved at all, and trying to negotiate on the price.
My questions are:
- What pitfalls and potential issues should I be aware of when buying my first home privately without RE involvement.
- What savings can the seller expect by having me reach out to purchase privately? (as this will factor into my offer).
The savings I have calculated for them are potentially 10-15k on selling their home without the RE. I've read RE charge between 1-3 percent of the sold value, and then sometimes advertisement fees ranging from 1-8k, So my estimate is that they'll save about 10-15k on their end potentially, or is this way off the mark?
Thanks!
Engage a solicitor as you would when you buy a property.
The seller/vendor should have one too.