SPEAKER_00 0:10

For those that ever came across an ad and it said auction next Thursday, unless sold prior, please listen up. This is the episode for you where we dive in and explain what it actually means. I have Megan with me today from Harcourts. Hello, Megan.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hello.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Good to have you back. Thank you. Awesome. Unless sold prior, we see that a lot. People come to us and they go, Oh, there's an auction next week. But I can, but the agent said I can make an offer now because it says unless sold prior. What does it mean?

Early Offer Story From Buyers

Fairness And Notifying Other Buyers

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Well, it's something that George and I use a lot. In fact, I think we have it on most of our listings. The reason being, unless sold prior, it's good for the buyers and for the vendors, but we normally put it on for the vendors. So what it means is that there might be a tender, a deadline, an auction, and it has unless sold prior, which means we could sell it earlier. So the the call to action is a certain date, but it means that the vendors are willing to look at other offers before that date. So we always explain to vendors, hey, if you had a buyer that wanted to make an early offer and you had just advertised that particular date at the end of your campaign, the buyer wouldn't necessarily be able to come and make an earlier offer because the advertising says that is the date. If you put unless sold prior, it means that the buyers are welcome to make early offers and we encourage it. So in the case of one of the buyers we worked with recently, they had sold up and they were due to be homeless fairly soon because the end of their the end of their settlement was fast approaching and they had people about to move into their house. And they were saying, we need to find a home really quickly. Could we come through and make an early offer? We were like, of course you can. You know, it's what that's what we're here for. We we like getting offers. Yeah. So they loved the house and we said, look, you know, the homeowners committed to their campaign, but if you made an offer that they felt was very competitive, then they would certainly look at your offer earlier. So they did. They made an awesome offer. The homeowners were like, actually, we would take that. And then we kind of negotiated with the homeowners about whether they wanted to allow their other buyers to be notified and also have a chance, or whether they just wanted to take the offer. So in that case, they actually let all the other buyers know because they felt it would be more fair, and everyone had a chance at the earlier date. So we just set a new deadline, like which was much, much closer. I think it was like a day or two, and then everyone had a chance to buy the house. So we try to be fair to everyone, but it does mean that somebody in a circumstance that wants to get that peace of mind and know that they can buy the house or just test out the price, right? Yeah. Because sometimes they're like, Well, would this buy it? And we're like, put it on paper, let's see.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

I love this because I can see it from the vendor's point of view how amazing that could be. But as my mortgage advisor hat came on, and I'm like, this just causes havoc for us because we often get notification from clients going, I want to buy a house, it's going to auction next week, da-da-da. And then literally a day later, we might get a call and they go, Oh my god, it's been brought forward. You know, I need to be approved right now.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

So that causes a little bit of havoc in our world. We love it. But I see it from the vendor's point of view of how important it is for them to get things moving. And as you say, if they actually got a good offer, why wait another week or two if you're already happy with what you've got.

Why It Stresses Mortgage Timelines

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Yeah. We always advocate for the homeowners to contact all the other buyers because we sort of feel like, well, sometimes people have invested in their due diligence or they put a lot of time and energy into getting ready for the deadline auction or tender. And if that was suddenly this like sold, that person might feel really like left out in the cold and uncared for. So we often encourage our homeowners, hey, like it's best practice in our point of view to let everyone know and give them all that chance. But in saying that, the person who was prepared and did make the early offer, we don't want to disadvantage them either. And we would never tell anybody what that early offer was or any of the conditions. So it's totally confidential, even if we are George and I often have to ring quite a few. There was one that made an early offer at the beginning of a long weekend, and we spent that whole weekend. We had 53 buyers to ring and say, and we text and ringed because we don't want anyone to go, oh, I didn't get notified, you know, because that's upsetting too. So we rang everyone and said, Hey, there's been an early offer, we can't tell you what it was, but we're setting a new date for your office to come in by. And this is totally possible for you to participate in if you wish to. One lady was like, I've got no chance, and we were like, you do actually, because we can help write up the contract for you and make it subject to your lawyer approving it, and we can add conditions in. We've got all the standard clauses, so we try and help them as much as possible in the process and try and make it as fair as we can.

A Real Deal Done In 10 Days

SPEAKER_00 5:15

Yeah. No, that's really good. It does demystify why people would put that on their ads. And I guess also, like I've had experience where vendors needed to move overseas or move towns, or as you say, they might have already had an offer on something else themselves. So getting that earlier offer on their property, it just enables them to get things moving for them. So it's not like we're trying to uh disadvantage any buyers out there. It's just that's how sometimes the things are.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

And sometimes it works well for the buyers, you know, the the ones that have been to their mortgage advisor and they know what conditions and they've pre-checked their contract, and they might have a dad who's a builder or something that can quickly come through the house. And those really motivated, committed buyers that know what they're doing can go in quite early in a campaign and make an early offer and you know, potentially get themselves a house.

Paperwork Pressure And Bank Delays

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Yeah. Well, I'll tell you what, I had a client that settled today and they bought a house at an auction last week, and that auction was brought forward because of them. And they only contacted me like three days before that things needed to be moving. And um, we got them pre-approved, we got them ready for that auction. And lucky enough, like they went in, they went all guns blazing, and they said to me, What's our max? What's our max? We're not gonna go to our max, but what's our max? We got them to the max approval, and yeah, they went in, got the auction, and today they settled. So literally everything happened within 10 days from start to finish. So it is possible if if we notified in advance as well, and we can move things around for them, and especially if they have quite a good deposit, then they don't need to do certain things that other people may have to do. Awesome. Thank you so much, Megan. Really appreciate it. Anything else to add before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_01 6:59

No, just I'm impressed that you managed to get them approved so fast.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

That's like a hero move. Well done. I'm impressed too. I I I um I rang the client this morning actually, and I said, Hey, congratulations, you know. And he goes, I can't believe how fast it happened. Like, I'm still in a bit of a shock because they had to sell their house here in Whitby and then move down to Christchurch. And yeah, like everything just happened, boom, boom, boom. I feel like we ran a whole marathon in that last 10 days, and also public holidays in between. So that was fun.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

It's funny because when when you say, Oh, I sold a house in six days or something, people are like, Oh, you've got such an easy job. You're like, No, you have no idea what those six days looked like. It's intense, it's really hard, isn't it? Like from your perspective, there must be a lot of paperwork that they have to do.

Wrap Up And Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_00 7:40

Oh, a ton, yeah, absolute ton of paperwork. So um, yeah, and also the banks, we were lucky the banks were moving a bit faster at this time of the year. But if they came to us like right before Christmas, that's hell. You know, we banks usually operate like two or three weeks behind at that time. So trying to get anything across at that time is a is a miracle.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

That is amazing. Miracles. We make miracles happen. I like that. I'm gonna use that. We should just use that as our tagline.

SPEAKER_00 8:05

Thank you, Megan Susan.

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Thank you.