Property investor and mentor, Nhan Nguyen, tells us how to structure offers to suit the market conditions and when to do quick or long settlements.

Michael Yardney tells us the two things 90% of investors fail to do and as a consequence do not maximise the potential of their portfolio.

Last week in the show I carried an interview with Shane Oliver from AMP with some dire predictions about the Australian property market. Well almost immediately I received a stinging email from Simon Pressley at Brisbane based Propertyology and this week we give him the right of reply.

Ben Kingsley shares with us the process he takes potential investors through when he is designing their portfolio. He says there are 4 elements that need to be in place for the plan to succeed. You will hear all 4 today.

There is a great book I want to tell you about today – its called The Real Estate Matchmaker. In it, Tim Eaton sets about explaining the 8 key questions most sellers don’t ask agents to guarantee they never leave any money on the table when negotiating the sale of a property. You will hear them in the show today.

Our question of the week comes from Rita who asks about depreciation on a cosmetic renovation and if she needs to replace her existing schedule or just add to it.

 
Transcripts:
Tim Eaton
Kevin:  I told you I’d tell you about a book that’s been written by Tim Eaton. It’s one of two books actually that Tim has sent me, but today, we’re going to talk about the one that’s called “The Real Estate Matchmaker” because inside the book, he gives you the eight key questions that nobody asks to guarantee that you never leave money on the table.

First of all, I’ll say hello to Tim. Good day, Tim.

Tim:  Good morning, Kevin. Good to be here.

Kevin:  I’ve been trying to put together a list of key questions that you should ask every agent before you appoint them, but the thing that I’ve found is that quite often we can ask the questions but we just don’t know what kind of answers we should be expecting because agents are very good at not spinning but selling themselves, Tim.

Tim:  Yes, spinning is not an unfair word sometimes, Kevin. Yes, that’s true. They’re looking to convince the homeowner why they should choose them and selling the big story about themselves. The great agents sometimes appear a little intrusive. They’ll ask questions of the homeowner, which is the best way to get a conversation going.

Kevin:  Yes, you have to understand about the person. A house is a house. It’s the person you’re actually either taking to auction or taking through the sale process.

Tim:  Absolutely.

Kevin:  Yes, I did promise that we’d go through the eight key questions. We’re not going to be able to talk about them all in detail, but we’ll certainly get across the top of them. There’s one in particular I want to talk about, and then I think over the next few weeks, we might pick up on some of the others. Let’s quickly run through what are the eight key questions that need to be asked or understood about how an agent works, Tim.

Tim:  The subtitle of the book, Kevin, is that everything sells best fresh. The first of the eight keys is days on market. It’s a terminology that is a bit of jargonized within the industry called the DOM, or days on market. It means how long has the property been on the market before it sells, and the earlier it does that, the better.

Kevin:  The measure of a good agent is that their days on market is likely going to be less than their opposition or the market generally.

Tim:  Absolutely, and that information is available to the homeowner. It’s free. It’s on public websites. What is the average days on market in that area? You want to see your agent would be less than the average in the area.

Kevin:  Okay, second one.

Tim:  Auction clearance rates. This won’t apply to every jurisdiction in Australia, but for most of them, you want to see high auction cl