Recently travelling to Sydney for my first Real Estate Buyers Agents Association of Australia (REBAA) networking event in Paddington, I had to catch a couple of cabs to get around. I am sure many of you would have had similar experiences where you got into the cab, told the cab driver the destination you are wanting to head to and immediately get the blank look. Sometimes they might then ask for a street address to which they then put into their GPS. At one point on the way to the event, I actually had to give the driver directions from Google Maps on my phone. The area to which I was heading through looked vaguely familiar as I had gotten lost there just the week before when I was driving back to Newcastle from the CBD. Now I can understand that Sydney is a big place and many drivers are new to the city, learning as they go. Further still, so long as they don’t get completely lost, the difference in fares between a seasoned professional and a someone flying by the seat of the pants or skirt, isn’t going to break the bank. But really, a professional driver doesn’t rely on technology to navigate and nor should a buyers agent.
Buying a property in an unfamiliar city isn’t all that different to travelling in so much as you find your way around as you go and if it looks dodgy you still clear. Except the potential loss for taking a wrong turn is quite a bit higher than your average cab fare. One of the reasons I became a buyers agent was I found out of area buyers asking questions about the neighbourhood and its surroundings. Once I opened up, the knowledge I had accumulated from living in Newcastle my entire life and working in the property industry since 2007 astounded them. As a buyers agent, my clients gain the benefit of this knowledge and this equips them to make more informed decisions when purchasing a property in the Newcastle Region. While I work independently of sales agents and I only act for buyers, my residential sales experience is what I attribute to how I deliver the results for my clients that I do. There are many suburbs in the Newcastle Local Government area that I have physically walked every street, multiple times, while either letterbox dropping or door knocking. I don’t often need a GPS to find my way around Newcastle. Getting to know the good streets from the bad and the good parts of those streets from the bad parts is something that property data services or property sales portals can’t provide you. And do you think the sales agent is going to tell you that you are about to buy in the dodgy part of the street?
I know that if I was asked to act for a client to find them a property on the North Shore of Sydney, I would be just like the taxi driver flying by the seat of their pants. So if you are interviewing a buyers agent to act for you outside your home town or an area you aren’t familiar with don’t make the mistake of hiring the “taxi driver” look for the experienced local expert. To find out how I can deliver you a result you are elated with, call me on 0438502371
