How to sell a Graceville property

Graceville property sells for local record of $1,075,000 when agent puts spotlight on development possibilities

Best Use Real Estate beat three other agents to sell a Graceville property far above the owner’s expectations.

When Glenda Boike pitted four agents against each other to sell her family’s Graceville home she never expected it to sell for $1.075 million.

“I thought if we got $1M for the house and land we would be lucky,” she said.
“That’s because nearby houses that were of a similar age and style had sold in the past for $860,000.”

To say she was flabbergasted to receive an offer $75,000 above initial estimates is an understatement. In fact, within a few days she had two offers on the table from the Best Use agency that had spotted the development potential of the site.

Selling agent Brad Walker said that at the end of a wild and difficult two-week sales process he sold the property for $35,000 above that of the second best agent.

“Interestingly our second highest buyer at $1,045,000 was also above anything the other agents were able to produce,” he said.

The sale also smashed the suburb’s previous record price of $950,000.“Even though we beat our vendor’s expectations by $75,000, we usually don’t get involved in open listings because it simply doesn’t work. In this instance we knew we had great buyers for the property, so we accepted the listing knowing that we would sell it” Brad said.

Glenda had been contemplating the sale of her parents’ home for several months and as such had been collecting flyers left in the letterbox from real estate agencies, including a leaflet from Best Use Real Estate. Those were the agencies she approached to sell the house.

“I couldn’t decide who to go with, so thought I’d give them all a month to see what they could up with,” she said.

“While two other agents did have offers, they were nowhere near the offer from Best Use Real Estate.

“I approached Best Use as I thought that they would have the best knowledge and ability to sell my mum’s house as a development potential property. I approached other agents to sell it as a house.

The key to selling this Graceville property was seeing its' greater value as a development site.

"Brad showed me that you had to look out for a property’s potential. He helped me understand the development potential of this property and the demand for such properties.”

With the house sitting in the middle of two land parcels, the development opportunity was obvious, especially as both land titles were included.

If Glenda hadn’t acted on the property’s development potential she could have missed out on $75,000 in added value.

Hedging your bets by using several agents to sell a property isn’t conventional these days. While it may seem like a logical way to get a higher price, in reality it does the opposite as agents try to make a quick sale before another agent does. This has the effect of missing a lot of potential buyers in the meantime.

And as mentioned previously, is not a recommended method as having less buyers can have a seriously negative impact on prices.

“Fortunately Brad already knew of a possible buyer when I first approached him and pretty soon he had two offers lined up,” Glenda said.

“The result was fantastic. He earned his commission on this one.”

Glenda said Brad was very enthusiastic and committed to getting the best price for her property.
He was keener than the other agents and offered a lot more communication.

“I found the experience very rewarding and would recommend Brad to other sellers who may have a development potential property.”

To find out what your home is worth today please contact Brad Walker - Best Use Real Estate for a FREE report on 0448 887 937.