SPEAKER_01: 0:10

If your offer just been accepted on the property and you have no idea what comes next, listen up. This is the episode for you. I've got Jordan in the house. Hello, Jordan. Let's go. Wonderful. So you've been really, really busy. We haven't seen you in a while. Because you've been super busy. And it's almost the end of January and you've helped heaps of first-time buyers. Now, what is the common scenario at the moment? Take it away from me.

SPEAKER_00: 0:35

At the moment, I've probably had at least four or five clients in the last month that have come back to me. And it's mostly just picking up stuff with builders' reports or on the limb, like those little things that people just tend to glance over or miss kind of when you when you're going through, like you said, you're you're unconditional. You've just got to do what we call your due diligence. Like you're going to make sure everything about the conditional. Ah, yeah, that's right. Before you go on the thing. Before you're unconditional. You are still conditional. You know, so that's you like you get your builder's report, and that's your opportunity to have a look through, make sure everything's in order, like you don't have any holes in the roof, the foundations aren't falling away. But there's there's also little bits like uh unconsented works and stuff, you know, like and that's what the Limb Report will tell you as well, is if there's like you can see there's something that's been done to the hat property, or the builder's report says it like states, oh, this is new, been done to the property. It's good to cross-check that against the limb and the cancel records because there may not be no may not be any consent for that. Maybe maybe maybe may not be any consent for that. Unfortunately, I had one property with a client that it was all pretty good, just a little bit of moisture damage around a windowsill in the bathroom, which isn't that bad. Like we got a quote for that. Builder came through, did the quote, was like, yeah, it's gonna cost about two, two, three grand, you know, that's all cool. But he nice enough, went through the rest of the property and had a quick look about, and he was like, Oh, there's there's some storage been put in into this garage lot underneath. That goes through the structural beam, that doesn't look safe. And went back to uh the client as she looked up into the limb and cancel records, and it was not supposed to be there. So even though the house was standing, yep, it it was very prone to not standing anymore. Yeah, so just little things like that that sometimes a a previous builder's report had had picked like not picked it up either. So it's really taking the time and actually having a look through as well, making sure that everything matches up is very important. And so, yeah, that's what I'm finding a little bit of lately is builders' reports coming back with a little bit more than what we were expecting sometimes, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 2:53

So it's really important for clients to understand what they're getting themselves into because to be honest, you and I are super busy, we don't have the time to sit there and read through 50 pages of Builders Report, 120 pages of Lim report. Like we just wouldn't physically have the time if we had to do it every single time for every single client. So at the end of the day, it does the responsibility does fall back on the client to make sure that they read those reports themselves thoroughly. Like we will read through it, we'll skim through it.

SPEAKER_00: 3:24

Yeah, well, we we skim, see if there's bonding or alerts. Yeah, it's mostly what what's orange or red. You know, that's obviously the main stuff you've got to be looking at.

SPEAKER_01: 3:32

And same with the bank. That's what the bankers will do. They will just skim through it and they'll have a look at what's alerting them in the report. But we are not the ones that goes and sees the property physically, time after time after time. You are, you know, as a client. So the responsibility falls with the client to make sure they read the builder's report, they are understand the limb reports and the council records. And even sometimes, you know, looking at the previous listings of those properties can be useful if it's an older property.

SPEAKER_00: 4:01

The photos and whatnot, like using homes.co.nz, they usually have a lot of photos listed, which is kind of nice.

SPEAKER_01: 4:07

Yeah. So yeah, no, that's a really, really good one. So before you fully can go unconditional, before the house fully becomes yours, make sure you read those reports. You're paying lots of money for them. They're not just there to tick the box exercise, they're there to protect you. Because if you don't read them properly, or if you haven't paid someone to do it properly, you will actually end up with hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars out of pocket.

SPEAKER_00: 4:32

They're also really good for what we call preventative maintenance. You know, if you're you're buying a property and it's it is all tickety-boo, you know, like happy days, but it says, oh, this and the area of this roof may need repainting, or uh just keep an eye on this area as it may need some attention soon. It's great to be able to write down a little bit of list of what what little things that you're gonna need to do with your property over the next five years of ownership if you're gonna own it for that long, you know, like you get your money's worth out of those builders' reports too, if you're gonna have them done. Because it's not gonna affect you now, but it's it definitely um helps you later on. Especially like because most of the time you're not usually buying new, you're usually buying an older property. Like you can you can take that. Think of it as like a a service on your car. They always turn around and be like, oh, you know, you might need your brakes done in in a about six months kind of thing. Treat the builder's report like that as well, you know, like need to do a bit of rust repair or a bit of paint here or there, or oh, it looks like there's a bit of moisture turning up in the bathroom. Oh, maybe we should look at getting an extraction system installed in the next year, you know, to try and prevent that. So you can use a builder's report in a lot of different ways too.

SPEAKER_01: 5:44

Brilliant, brilliant. Thank you so much, Jordan. Really appreciate your thoughts on that. But remember, guys, once you take off that box and you said to your lawyer you're happy with the builder's report, it doesn't leave you any more room for negotiation. Once you've gone unconditional, this is it, the house is yours. You cannot back out of that offer. But the builder's report can also serve as a tool to bring the price down. So if you think that there is maintenance that needs to be done and the builder has given you a quote, you can actually negotiate the price with the vendor to bring it down. And I had a case before where there was a roof that needed repairing and we managed to bring the price down by 10k. So remember the builder's report is your tool to use for multiple reasons. And if you want to hear more, do get in touch with us and we can show you how else you can use the builder's report for your advantage. Thank you. Until next time.

SPEAKER_00: 6:37

Have a good one.