Episode:	E156
Show Title:	What Should I Ask at a House Inspection?
Cast:	Aaron Horne, Patrick Berry, & John McGregor
Show Length:	20 minutes 20 seconds

Aaron hijacks the show this week for his personal gain… but heck, if you are going to host a podcast about real estate, there has got to be some perks?! Doesn’t there?!

To prepare for an upcoming House Inspection, Aaron picks the Brains of the panel with what questions he should ask, what he should be looking for, and what type of impression he should make.

Listen in as the team provide some tips and tricks.

Make sure to read over our recent blog post about this, too, for some additional reminders during Open Homes.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Aaron
Just pick your guys brains to assist with my eye. I’m going to have a look at a property later today. I wanted to know what kind of questions should I be asking when I get to the interaction? What should I be looking for in the property when I get there?

[intro]

Aaron
All right, guys. Welcome back to the Property Pod, your weekly engagement into real estate here in the Hobart marketplace. I’m your host, Aaron Horne, and it gives me great pleasure to be back at the desk with Patrick and John McGregor. (Patrick cheers) Welcome back, team. How are we feeling? This actually, I think the day this goes out will be the first day of winter, so.

John
Oh, really?

Aaron
Let it be known. Yeah.

John
First day of winter has arrived.

Aaron
Doesn’t the first time–

Patrick
Copyright–with shorts and t-shirt.

Aaron
Well, tell me about it. Yeah, it was actually.

Patrick
The magic of editing. That’s how far and advance we are.

Aaron
It was cracking weather. Yesterday, it was 19 degrees. I swear, is going to be the first one to over into June. And I’ll be the first I went to go.

Patrick
Yeah, let’s go. Let’s go.

Aaron
With that. Yeah. All right. So thanks, guys. Thanks for waking me up. Feels like it’s already been winter. Yeah, we’re rolling into winter. It’s kind of a different time for the marketplace. Kind of things kind of seem to slow down. I’m going to guess, could you kind of give me an idea of winter would be the slowest time of the year for sales historically?

John
Yeah. Look, it seems you have your highest turnover suburb months, which are September, October, November, and then it’s February, March, April. And then just those, those then there’s just not as many transactions that go through. That’s just what has happened, generally speaking.

Aaron
Yep. Everyone kind of goes home and it’s like a bear.

Patrick
No, it looking out the go. Yeah, exactly. I sort of held on to stand at them for hours on end, but I do.

John
And we’ve seen this too with our rental properties where the days on market to find tenants have been extended. Yep. And we when we had our old business we often which was quite hot on the team but that we often then would have the leases actually exchanging exclusively over during those summer months because that’s just when we knew that you had the highest turnover.

John
But that’s not always possible, of course.

Aaron
Yeah, of course.

John
But we certainly see the same pattern in the rental market because again, who wants to sit there and move sideways in winter if you can avoid it?

Aaron
Yeah, well, look, it is that crazy thing of like the weather yesterday was beautiful in the morning, crazy rain in the afternoon. You cancelling your BMX before and then didn’t even come to it like it was like, oh, it’s going to.

Patrick
Rain and it sucks. Like I’m moving at the moment. And we were moving stuff last Sunday and it was literally raining most of the time, like seed load and stuff into the truck and that’s pissing down on unloading in the rain. It’s the sucks you don’t want to. Yeah.

Aaron
So before we get into any stuff I’ve planned for the episode today, I actually wanted to use this platform to just pick your guys brains to assist with my I. I’m going to have a look at a property later today and it came to me last and I was like, Holy moly, last time I bought, I kind of went to the photos of the place.

Aaron
I didn’t have to go through the process of kind of meeting the agent and, you know, schmoozing or whatever. What am I meant to say?

Patrick
Screws the owner.

Speaker 2
Last night I just said I want to schmooze. Yes.

Aaron
So I am good at the schmooze. But I thought like maybe.

Patrick
You got a blocker this time. You were able to schmooze directly to the owner last time and get them to like you this time you got this agent blocking you between.

Aaron
Well, so, so that’s what I want to talk about. I was kind of like, I never got to experience this side of things. Like I’ve, you know, I did the first step where I called him and said, Hey, man, I’ve seen this property online. Can I come and have an inspection? I wanted to know what kind of questions should I be asking when I get to the inspection?

Aaron
What should I be looking for in the property when I get there, and how do I make a good impression? How do I kind of well, if I want to make a good impression, maybe I’ll get there and think like, actually, this doesn’t suit my needs. I thought I could use his platform to pick your brains before we talk any other way.

Aaron
Obviously.

John
Look, I don’t need to have yourself as someone else.

Aaron
I’m looking on behalf of myself. So our fixed interest rate runs out kind of November based on what we had is a really good right. We’re going to have to look into our mortgage anyway. Yeah, our family’s growing by one. I don’t know if I’ve announced that on the podcast before, but anybody that knows me and I haven’t told you that we’re having another kid.

John
Have another guy, we have.

Speaker 2
Another kid.

Aaron
So we’re going to.

Patrick
Be hearing of all this, like porn. It means you’re not that important.

John
Three bedrooms isn’t looking as good.

Aaron
So three bedrooms isn’t looking as handy. We have a little outhouse out the back, but that’s a little bit too young to move. Move out already.

Patrick
I would love to see. Check out the that. Sorry, son. You know.

Aaron
You.

Patrick
Have got a hit on out.

Aaron
That’s out to the back house, buddy. He’d love it out there. Yeah. So, look, we don’t need to move. I mean, my brother lived in bunk beds. That was a fun time, you know, bunking with your brother. But if there is an option, we’re looking into kind of refinancing our mortgage. Anyway, Sarah just happened to find a place that looked pretty appealing.

Patrick
I guess it depends what impression you want to make. Like, if you want to. If you go in there and you start talking, oh, well, Jack, this is your room and. Oh, yes, there. Our couch will fit there. The agent’s going to all they’re going to hear. It’s touching. I’ve got a buyer. Yes. So it depends what type of perception you want to put out there.

Patrick
So me personally, I’d be really clinical if I was talking to the agent because I don’t want them to think I’m too keen on the property. Yes, but that’s made I what do you think?

John
Is it a one on one inspection? Yes, private inspection, I believe so. I would ask the owner to give me a tour. The owner sorry. The the the agent because the from the what happens with us sometimes though just like a dead salt. So you trying to if you can like some people just want to be left alone and then you ask them questions about their situation.

John
Whereas for me, if I was the buyer, I’d be asking the agent, Look, that’s better. You could give us a tour of the property to tell us everything you know about it. Yeah. And then you just constantly get them speaking because then they’re going to divulge information that you would otherwise. Probably not be able to get. And also to they’ll be more encouraged to stick around with you longer.

John
They’re not going to feel like when are you going to make a decision? And hopefully it’s that thing where they will just keep they’ll feel like you’ve had a good relationship. You haven’t actually told them anything about your situation, you know.

Patrick
So you’re talking from experience, John, because you just start talking.

Speaker 2
You divulged this situation to total. Now.

John
I think it’s the counterintuitive thing, though, where it’s like, Oh, I just need the agent out of the way. Well, no, no, no. That’s, that’s, that’s where the information is. So why don’t you just get them to start giving you? Look, they’ll go all they’ll start talk to you about the property. Why wouldn’t you? Yeah. So that’s the thing that you have to do it on your own, but use that resource to actually talk to you about the property of a sort about the area.

John
They start talking about the owner situation and I mean if they’re a little bit more experienced before, they’re probably asking you a little bit more about yourself, but you just keep asking the questions. Yeah, yeah.

Aaron
So the questions. So yeah, you give me an idea, a few of the questions. I actually really like yours. Part of I’m not projecting like, oh, this would be your room, Jack or Henry. I don’t.

Patrick
Know. The some of the different ways that you could approach on this is.

Aaron
The funny bit is like Sarah sent it to me and I wouldn’t look at the property. I just said, I don’t, I don’t want to think about this as an idea. I don’t want to project this forward. It’s a lot of work. Yeah, but and then she said she’s like, Well, we’ve got to look into it anyway. It could level us up, it could move us sideways.

Aaron
What’s the harm in looking? So yeah, I just thought I’d take this time to chat with you guys. I just noticed when I’m on the podcast, I’m talking with my hand so much more because I’m not like this anymore.

John
Which is nice, funny or natural.

Aaron
So yeah. So I guess we’re going in open minded that we really don’t have to move, but it’d be interesting to to look at it from there. So I just wanted to pick your brains on.

Patrick
I think it’ll come down as well to the answers you get from the agent as you, as you walk around. Yeah. Like you should be able to pick up of the agent, you know, interest levels, how much they’ve had. Like, you know, what he’s expecting is the outcome. Yeah.

Aaron
So can I ask like, what’s going to buy it.

Patrick
But you can, would you answer? I would probably not. But I would come up with a roundabout answer that doesn’t really given it. So that makes. Yes.

Aaron
So that’s what I was sort of wondering.

Patrick
Because, you know, if you’ve got it on it, 800,000 offers over and you say to me, Patrick, what’s going to bought what anything over 800, it’s going to be considered. I’m not going to say Ira one’s going to buy it. Yeah. Yeah, right. Because you might be thinking, shit, I’m going have to pay 820 to get this place.

Patrick
So I’m never going to give you an exact number. Yeah. And then, you know, sometimes people will ask, you know, is it negotiable the price. Yeah. And I’m, I’m a smart arse. I’m always, it’s always negotiable. And they get really excited. If you want to pay more for it, I’m never going to stop you. You know, like, so I’ll always try to be a little bit more humorous with my answers or not really give too much away because at the end of the day, the agent works for the Well.

Aaron
That’s your job. That’s your job to get the most for the vendor and.

John
And sometimes you might struck it lucky where you just dealing with a person who’s just not a good professional and then they’ll be like they’re just ones that will just try and hustle the deals is.

Patrick
Some will just give you that answer straight away and like look the owner’s got it under 100, but I know personally you’ll get up to 70.

John
And it could be a case to where I’ll ask the right question. The owner is sitting there saying, look, I will take 850, but they refuse to reduce the asking price. Yes. So the agents, they’re like, well, just bring me an offer. So if you can. So by asking the right question, you might just hit that situation right again.

John
And that comes down to that timing and motivation. And the way I would ask the question is you just do it nonchalantly like you would in a conversation, like was the end of what was the end of this beautiful place? Yeah, yeah. You know, not why is the owner selling or how motivated.

Patrick
And I tell you what, this tenant next door in that absolute panic.

Aaron
But funnily enough, I think you know that the place I’m talking about, but it’s from my old street, it’s literally Sarah.

John
Oh, no.

Aaron
Why sent it to me and said, Look at this. It’s like three houses down from your old house. I just like, funny how that works. Yeah. I was like, Yeah, let’s have a look. Yeah, yeah.

John
Yeah, right. But didn’t ask the questions firstly because it’s that if you if you ask the questions you controlling the narratives. Yeah. In many ways some of that they’re going to give you more information rather than you trying to be smart about it. Yeah. Just like you would in a normal conversation with a friend.

Aaron
So sounds good. Thanks for that. It. I thought I’d take this time to yeah. Just pick your brain because it’s like.

Patrick
No, John. No, I provided no hint.

Aaron
So what’s that about? Talking around the subject a.

Patrick
Few minutes of the podcast, I would say.

John
I guess just because we’ve been doing it long enough now the conversation is almost like on repeat. You’ve heard it so many times that when people come up and try to sound too intelligent, you’re like, So you know what? This is where it’s going. Yeah. Whereas if you just had a general conversation, the information will flow as generally anyway.

Aaron
Yeah, yeah. Know look it’s one of those things where it was like I’ve had enough conversations around real estate, but that conversation of being like, Oh yeah, we’re showing up for an inspection. Like I said to Sarah, I don’t think the boy should come. I don’t want to be doing that thing where we’re like, Oh, look, this could be your room, mate.

Aaron
Like our it’s like, let’s just go. Let’s look at it clinically and then make a decision. From there.

Patrick
I think it’s easier to look without kids distracted by them, not try and touch things exactly run around the place. So I’m always a fan of when I bought stuff, looking at it by myself. Yeah.

Aaron
So when you do have people show up for an inspection and they’ve got their two kids in tow, do you think like sickies or do you think like.

Patrick
I’m thinking these people can’t afford this place. I’ve got kids on that expensive. They are.

Aaron
I’m speaking of narrative. I went to jump off of narrative before, but I wanted to jump in. There was a really interesting article in the Mercury just the other day. Jared Bevan I’m going to start with the spy narrative. I’m going to start with what happened with yours and Erin Morris property. Oh 29 Also place. Yeah, yeah.

John
Because this was obviously Jared will reach out if there’s any unique stuff but I think the main driver was because he had the stats to show that was the most viewed property or something like that.

Aaron
Yes. So this is what I want to talk about like the most viewed property in on real estate dotcom across that period of time.

Patrick
I think it was the last.

Aaron
Week for that week that’s. And you just happened to have this crazy arse video that went along with it. So so Dallas, how do you feel about being known as a super villain out there at the moment?

John
John I’m just disappointed I wasn’t wearing a more formal jacket. I mean, it was good that we had the branding on Man. I should have dressed up pretty well.

Aaron
So if anyone out there that hasn’t seen it, but if you are in the market, you probably would have seen I’m putting on my supplies. When I looked at the place, I kind of got the vibe of a James Bond super villain lair.

John
It was a good call on yours to pitch that idea because then you and then I did love the fact to get those shots, you had to just look. What did we talk about? It felt like we’re filming a a high school.

Aaron
Well, we were talking about that Martin video that we made years ago. Remember the one at my place? Yeah. Yeah, he was in drag.

John
That’s because you’re still you’re standing up on a chair with the, you know, the camera on a on.

Aaron
A tripod held up trying to pretend it was CCTV. Yeah.

John
It was fun to get the really well saw.

Aaron
Yes. The narrative of the of the place is a Arron Murray motorbike ing along to check out the beautiful Tasman Bridge when he gets a sudden message from his spy master or somebody, his handler saying you need to list, appraise and sell this property.

John
So is it Mr. Murray or should you choose to accept it just to list, appraise and sell that? Not in that order.

Speaker 2
That’s the price itself.

John

Patrick
Place Lindisfarne.

Aaron
So, so yes, he goes on a secret mission and the way that we sell all the features of the house is via this. He tried to enter the property and made his contact. Amazingly, it did get lots of people’s eyeballs on it. You’ve got to stop there.

Patrick
Yeah, I’m just inside real estate. Dot comes up now and it currently had 7.2 thousand people view the actual listing, but it’s actually appeared in the search results 77,000 times. Wow. So it just shows the volume of people searching Lindisfarne every day that the properties appeared in their search results that many times.

John
And I think that would be more than double than what the average for the area is actually for a house visit like.

Patrick
Click your thoughts. Yeah, yeah. It’d be interesting to see what the actual average stats are, but it’s pretty impressive when you look at it. But they also do this little graph and we might try to screenshot it and put it into the market comparison. So what the suburb generally does best is how yours is performed. So you guys are in the grey john in the blue is how the suburb normally.

Patrick
Yeah.

John
Well it’s not.

Patrick
So it’s hard to explain obviously via an audio format. Yeah.

Aaron
Now arrested up on the screen and we can have a look.

Patrick
Like in the early days of the campaign, in the first 1 to 6 days, it’s almost like four times as many views as the average home for the area.

Aaron
So hilariously page from Bendigo, who was our correspondent last week. She takes me before she’d seen the video. I’d told her anything about it. She’s like, Oh, this place is amazing.

John
Oh really?

Aaron
Yeah, yeah. So she’s looking into the Hobart marketplace. Eventually she wants to be paid from Hobart, not paid from Bendigo. So that’s right, yeah. She’s a centre to me and I said, oh, check out the video before you. And she says You idiot.

John
Because quite a few people at the open home had commented on the video and one of the ladies said it was just the right amount of cringe, just the right amount. So it didn’t it didn’t go too far into the point of, oh, my God, these guys are awful.

Patrick
Well, it’s probably good that you didn’t show any of your passwords, your might have changed her opinion.

John
I did it too late.

Aaron
So I look like it’s really amazing. Like Gareth Evans popped that article together, just saying, like, it’s been such a successful campaign. It is still on the market, it’s still available. So if you are listening to this and you want to check out the video or you want to check out the listing, it is an amazing property. It’s cool.

Aaron
It’s this kind of private spy sanctuary. If you’re just thinking about making a spy movie. But the perfect location, that’s it.

Patrick
You want to get your best Dr. Evil going evil man.

Aaron
I’m interested.

John
Yes, that’s a that’s a word. That’s that’s a that’s worth a.

Patrick
Rewatch, I guess I was thinking about Doctor Evil came to mind because he asked for $1 million as his reason.

Aaron
Oh, how do we not think of this $700,000 debt? Right. Next topic.

Patrick
Yeah.

Aaron
Well, there’s always a part to look. There’s probably not enough time to talk about the other topic. So let’s just jump onto this last one I wanted to cover up before we go Trolley Gate, our local community. Yeah. And the only reason this one is come across my desk is I saw a local agent slash alderman here Russell actually which you guys know doing that kind of classic thing where he’s out and the press have said, look, we really need to get you looking upset about.

John
Just the worst photo because it’s the photographer that’s asked to do it. I’m like, Really? Why would you make people stand like that?

Aaron
So yeah, I just like the story goes that I think within an hour or so they found 70 rogue trolleys in the Glenorchy area, just kind of here. They’re everywhere. So Magic Thomas And.

Patrick
Which is impressive because I can’t get my trolley to leave the Coles carpark, but he breaks himself every time, so hell, he’s Charlie’s escapee.

John
Oh, look, one of them is. He’s a friend. Really. He is. He moved motor bought a house office in West Moonah. Mikey’s name is and he’s always been a trolley hero because he’s one of the early hero. He’s one of the guys that rounds it up of his own back. Like he’s just a local citizen. Yeah, he’s not getting paid for it, but he’s one of the guys that collects it and delivers it to where they need to go.

John
So there are a couple of little heroes that are right now that help out.

Aaron
I was I took a moment to be a hero for my son, Wade. That was one opposite our straight and was there for like four days. And I was like, that looks ugly. I don’t want that obvious at my house when I walk out the door to see this trolley, just thing that put it out of the house, left it there the next time we went to the shops, got it up and into the back of the ute.

Aaron
Luckily I’ve got a puppet in there. I run it back and Jack’s like, Oh, we get to take our own trolley to this, to the thing that I was just like, Nah, we’re taking it back. When we finish shopping. I go to take it back to the trolley by. Yeah, no Dad back on the back of the car.

Speaker 2
He was just like.

Aaron
Nah, nah, that’s not how it works. We’re returning the trolley.

Speaker 2
Oh.

Aaron
But they’re all out in the wild. I think that they’re holding them to ransom. I think they’re going to say it’s your duty to come and get these ones. But it just, it just pick.

Patrick
Woolworths and Coles to go buy their trolleys.

Aaron
Bicycle. Yeah. Yeah. So it looks like they’re going to kind of just destroy them otherwise.

Patrick
Like the next mission for Aaron Mary and John McGregor. But the.

John
Hope for the problem is they remember how I used to love putting the dollar in the trolley, the $0.20 of the $0.50 to get that money.

Aaron
Back. No one has cash anymore.

Patrick
So you implying that all of them should have credit card rate is where you tap.

John
Now, I want to bring back. Bring back, like, oh, maybe some fake tokens. I don’t know, bring.

Patrick
Back the cash. Well, if you go to those Aldi shopping centres on the mainland they have tokens still there. Yeah. And you actually buy the token and it goes on your keyring really. And then putting the coin in and having to have a coin, you have an Audi token that you buy from this shop. Hey you got and you click it in and then your keys just hang off your trolley until you put the trolley back and then you get your car keys back.

Aaron
And that’s going to stop you from walking away from your trolley.

John
Although I would like to know the stats, the Aldi trolleys, you know, whether or not they suffer the same. Is it cause and.

Aaron
How many are out in the wild?

John
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aaron
Why do I guess that? The reason I brought it up was the image of it. He looked very upset.

John
Really? Oh, absolutely.

Aaron
Yeah. So I’d hate to see a contract fall over on me. That’s how he feels about us, though. It’s all.

Aaron
I think that’s the part for these white guys. I had other stuff to talk about, but actually, yeah. Stole the show to pick your brains on my inspection of not how it.

Patrick
Goes, how it goes. Next week, I’ll let you know.

Aaron
Yeah, yeah. So we’ll find out. Good luck. Thank you for joining us once again. And we will be back next week with more property.

Patrick
Sounds good. Thank you.

Aaron
Bye.

[extro & disclaimer]