Monthly Archives: June 2014
Why choose to hold open homes when selling?
Open homes are one of the most effective ways of marketing a property and attracting interest from a wide variety of buyers. Some of the many advantages are:
• You have plenty of time to ensure your property is tidy and ready for inspections.
• You can control the viewing times.
• Open homes can create plenty of activity, even in a
slow market.
• Interest and activity can trigger urgency with buyers.
• The sales consultant’s time is put to best and most
effective use. They will have the opportunity to talk
to numerous people about your property.
• Comments from open home visitors can provide
feedback on price, presentation, sales appeal, etc.
How can you prepare for an open home? Your sales consultant will do all them marketing necessary to attract the maximum number of visitors to your open home. However, when you have them there,you will want to ensure you present your home in the best possible light.
Here are ten quick tips on how to make your property “open home ready”:
1. Declutter – an overcrowded room looks unappealing and smaller than it actually is.
2. Clean. No one likes the idea of living with other people’s dirt. If your home smells and looks clean you are creating a great environment for viewers.
3. Keep decorations simple and don’t display family photographs. You want buyers to visualise their own things and family in your home, not yours.
4. Make each room count. Give each one a purpose so that your viewers can see how they could use it. Don’t leave any room as a storage place for your possessions
5. First impressions count and last. Think about the first aspects that potential buyers will see – like fencing, the letterbox and the driveway.
6. Remember the small things count too. Check light switches to make sure they work. Fix any doors or cupboards that don’t close. Fix leaky taps.
7. If you can, give your walls a fresh coat of paint. Choose neutral colours so as to not individualise your property too much.
8. Fresh flowers and soft music playing in the background give a good impression.
9. If cold outside, have a fire going or heaters on.
10. Fresh coffee on the stove, vanilla in a slightly warm oven or on a hot element, or aromatherapy oil burners give a very inviting smell and can sweeten stale and musty homes.
You can be assured your Harcourts sales consultant will ensure all open home visitors sign a register with their contact details. This is for security reasons as well
as to follow up later for feedback on your property.
If you have chosen to market your home without disclosing a price, under no circumstances will your sales consultant talk to a potential buyer around your price expectations. A sales consultant’s first duty is always to the seller and you deserve to have the best opportunity at achieving the highest amount of money that a buyer is willing to pay.
Hall’s Corner sells for $14.5m
The North Shore landmark property known as Hall’s Corner has been sold for $14.5 million and its new owner plans to make it an integral part of Takapuna’s renaissance. Ben Cook of Cook Property Group has added Hall’s Corner to his portfolio. Cook says the former owners left the property as a blank canvas, for which he is grateful, and now he intends a general refurbishment as well as to fill the vacancies with quality tenants in keeping with the upmarket retail heart of Takapuna. “Takapuna is undergoing a renaissance. The area has been undervalued in the past, but it’s a wealthy demographic and the recent upscale developments, including the McKenzies Project across the road, have changed the whole feel of Takapuna.” Cook plans to attract a good metro-sized grocery offering, as well as a quality restaurant to add to the existing tenants of Hall’s Corner, which comprises four titles including four buildings with a total floor area of 2,381m² and dual road frontage on Lake and Hurstmere Roads. Hall’s Corner was marketed by Rob Meister and Andrew Bruce of NAI Harcourts North Shore. Meister and Bruce says there was excellent interest in the property. “The interest generated was enormous. There was the pure investment aspect, and then the possibility to development. Ben Cook is not going to maintain the status quo, and I think we can expect to see a rejuvenation similar to the McKenzies Project,” Bruce says. The sale has helped cement NAI Harcourts’ standing on the North Shore, coming just one week after the office’s successful auction of 34 Apollo Drive for $5,930,000. “We are vendor focussed,” Meister says. “Hall’s Corner had been in the same family for over 100 years, and we were sensitive to that when working with our vendor. They had a huge emotional attachment to the property, and we worked hard to get them the best possible result.” Cook too has a family connection to Hall’s Corner. In the 1970s part of the property was tenanted by Woolworths, where his father worked as general manager. “So I have a little bit of history there. This is an intergenerational investment that has been held by the same family for over a century. It’s very rare to have the opportunity to purchase a prime retail property like this. I am excited about the opportunities,” Cook says. Hall’s Corner is named after William Henry Hall, who acquired it in 1907 and established a bakery and tearooms on the corner. Over the years there have been a number of tenants on the corner site. One of the most well-known and longest lasting tenancies was Ingham Hardware, which occupied the corner shop for many years. Graeme Hall is the current representative for the Hall family interests and has managed the family decision to sell the property. Hall says selling the property has been a “wrench” for his family after so many years, however the time was right to sell and they are extremely pleased with the outcome. “Takapuna has been through a hard patch over the past five or six years, but, with all the recent developments, I think it has turned a corner. Ben Cook and the plans for Halls Corner will be another positive for Takapuna.”
