Beach & Bay’s Real Estate Blog

To celebrate the halfway mark of our Dry July, the Beach & Bay team got together with clients and friends at Bass & Flinders Cronulla for some coffee and cupcakes. We have been keeping a Dry July diary so if you would like to know how we are coping – have a read!

Everyone who attended donated $2 to our Dry July fund and special mention to the Travelscene Cronulla girls who donated $60. Thanks to everyone who has supported us so far, put up with our whinging and encouraged us when we were about to lose it and grab the wine bottle.

For anyone interested in supporting the Price of Wales Hospital – please give kindly. A donation big or small will be much appreciated. Every dollar counts!

We would like to thank everyone who has been involved so far! Halfway through the month and over halfway to our target of $2000 ($1175 so far!).

To donate click here – Booze Free Beach & Bay Realty

To see photos from the day, or see the amazing cupcakes see our flickr site!

To continue on with my Auction Series, this week I’ll explain the concept of the vendor bid. To view last week’s blog explaining the difference between a private treaty and an auction, click here.

In NSW, a vendor or seller of a property is entitled to make one bid on their own property at auction. This rule was introduced in 2003 with the theory behind it being that often buyers are reluctant to make the first bid. There is always those anxious few minutes where everyone sits on their hands so the vendor bid is useful to kick things off!

There are rules that apply to the use of a vendor bid:

• A vendor bid cannot be made unless the auctioneer has, before the commencement of the auction, clearly stated that a bid may be made by or on behalf of the seller
• If the vendor bid is used at the auction it must be clearly announced at that time
• If the property passes in with a vendor bid as the last bid of the auction, the result must be published as ‘vendor bid’ and not ‘passed in’. For example, the Sunday Telegraph or Sun Herald will publish the result as $600,000 VB.
• If the vendor bid is not the last bid, i.e. there are other buyer bids following the vendor bid but the property has still not reached its reserve and passes in, then it can be published as ‘passed in’.

Normally the auctioneer submits the vendor bid on behalf of the vendor, and the vendor bid can be made at any point during an auction.

The Sutherland to Surf is fast approaching, which means my well-planned and rigorous training schedule is quickly falling by the wayside. In my mind I planned to run a few days a week in the months leading up to the race, but the body just couldn’t follow through. The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

If you haven’t already, sign up! You can walk, run or roll the 11km down to Wanda Beach from Sutherland in any fashion you choose. 5000 competitors are expected to line up this year in the 39^th Sutherland to Surf.

The team at Beach and Bay will be there with bells on. We are running with Australian Youth Against Cancer (AYAC), a charity we have featured on our blog before. If you sign up and want to help out a worthy cause, jump on their website to join their running group or email ayac.fundraising@gmail.com.

How do you choose whether to put a price on your property or go to auction? There are a few simple questions a seller can ask themselves to help with this choice. They are

• Is my property unique?
• Is my property hard to price because it is so unique?
• How many other properties are on the market with similar characteristics to my property that buyers would be comparing with?

An agent can tell you exactly what market conditions are like.

• Is there a shortage of your type of property on the market?

For example in the middle of winter less people sell but this can be the best time to sell if your house faces north or west and gets loads of sunshine. If there are more buyers than sellers it is the perfect situation.

• Does your property have a view, or is it in a highly sought after position?

Most agents will promote the auction process if your property has either or both of these features. If your house has a characteristic that will lead people to get emotionally attached and thus carried away at auction, go for the auction!

• Is there any number of properties on the market like yours?

Think about what you would do as a buyer. A buyer will look at everything in their price range that seems comparable and if there are a lot of properties like yours on the market, choosing to go to auction could be a mistake. Remember buyers have to do all their inspections prior to auction day with no guarantee they will get the property. When there is plenty of choice for buyers, buyers will tend to look at properties with an asking price before they look at an auction property and spend money on solicitors, pest inspections etc.

Another reason for a vendor to go to auction is time constraints.

- Do you need to be sold in 4 weeks?

- Are you going overseas for work and in a hurry?

- Are you financially strapped and need out?

The auction process puts an end date on the process.

It’s almost a month to the day since I did a short write up on the Shark Island Challenge. We haven’t forgotten about it, nor have we lost interest. The riders are still hanging around town on stand-by, but Mother Nature refuses to deliver the goods.

The month-long waiting period for the Shark Island challenge, which started June 14^th, will end in two days. And I must say… the forecast doesn’t look good.

Luckily, the waiting period has been extended. Officials now have until August 5^th to allow the ocean to provide contestable waves.

The extension is great news for those interested in the Shark Island Challenge, but it is certainly frustrating that it has come to this. In the past month, Cronulla (and most of the NSW coast) has failed to deliver waves over three foot. Adding to the frustration is the fact that the Island and the East Coast saw pumping waves for a good month or two in the lead up to the waiting period.

Local contestants Sam Strachan and Shaun Pyne managed to relieve their thirst for waves with a short trip to South Australia last week, and by all reports they scored three days of amazing waves.

You can stay up to date on all things bodyboarding, including the Challenge, on Fluidzone.

Starting on Monday 12^th July, I am beginning a 4 week series covering all aspects of auctions. Beach & Bay Realty tracks auctions in the suburbs of Cronulla, Woolooware, Burraneer, Caringbah, Caringbah South, Lilli Pilli and Dolans Bay every week and from this we receive lots of questions from the public on various aspects of the auction process. In the following weeks I will endeavour to throw some light on the often perceived daunting process of an auction campaign and answer some of your questions. If there is anything specific you would like me to cover please email me at kylie@beachandbay.com.au or leave a comment.

When you have been in the industry as long as I have you tend to live and breathe real estate so it’s sometimes easy to forget that buyers and sellers may be completely new to auctions, are scared of the thought and don’t know the jargon. The point of this auction series is to write things out in plain and simple terms – and to state the taken for granted knowledge I’ve gained from experience.

If you disagree with anything I write please make a comment or email, I am open to other view points and definitely open to discussion. Some of the topics to be covered will be:

• Auction Vs Private Treaty? – How do you choose whether to put a price on your property or go to auction?
• Do you know what a vendor bid is?
• How much is an auctioneer?
• Onsite VS In-room auctions?
• Does an auction campaign cost more than private treaty?
• Bidders guide for auction day
• The difference between a vendor bid and the reserve
• When is the reserve set?
• Can an auctioneer knock back my bid?
• Auctioneer VS Agent? Their role on auction day
• Unconditional, 66W and cool off exchanges

My qualifications:

I am a Licensed Real Estate Agent and I have been selling real estate for 14 years. I am also a fully licensed, non practising Auctioneer!

In just over a week our team for Dry July has raised over $905. A big congratulations to Mel A who has raised $305 of this (and is the one who inspired us to get involved!). We have 6 participants (all female) and are both loving and hating the experience.

In a week we are exercising more, feeling fresher, avoiding hangovers and navigating social situations booze free. We are also eating more chocolate to compensate, complaining quite a lot and reflecting on how alcohol has come to play such a huge part in our daily lives (quite scary!)

I’m finding the challenge quite tough as am in the thick of 21^st season – 2 per weekend with unlimited free bar tabs. It’s not easy that’s for sure, but it’s a hell of a lot easier than dealing with cancer (obviously!) and so whenever I begin to feel sorry for myself, I just have to remember that this is a tiny tiny challenge in comparison!

We have been logging our experience in a daily journal and you can read more about everyones struggles here! I also found this hilarious video a fellow Dry Julyer made (hopefully it doesn’t get to this point!)

Kylie has been full of energy and ideas this week – getting more and more excited about the amount of money we are raising and the impact this will have on The Prince of Wales hospital and the adult cancer patients we are directly helping. In order to celebrate our halfway mark we are organising a get together at Bass & Flinders café in Cronulla next Friday 16^th July. Friends and clients are more than welcome to join us – to share a coffee (not Irish ok!) and a cupcake (famous Cupcake Kitchen ones). We are asking for a $2 entry donation to go towards our fundraising and anyone who has already donated is especially encouraged to come as a thank you!

Cupcakes & Coffee to celebrate Dry July

Where: Bass & Flinders, Cronulla

When: Friday July 16th at 11am

What to bring: Yourself, some positive encouragement for Dry Julyers, $2 donation & money for coffee

Please email info@beachandbay.com.au or phone the office on 9527 0008 if you would like to join us. (So Kylie can bake enough cupcakes!).

Cheers!

Certain houses just have a feel about them. Some exude style, sophistication and extravagance whilst others offer a cosy retreat. Our latest listing, 8 Kurnell Road, offers quintessential coastal living right in the heart of Cronulla.

Within a stone’s throw of Cronulla Golf Course and situated only minutes to the sandy beaches of Cronulla, 8 Kurnell Road is an idyllic family home. This beautifully sunlit beach house is all about the lifestyle it allows.

The indoor/outdoor living areas flow from the Caesar Stone kitchen through to the backyard, so that parents can glance to check on children playing on the level lawn or in the in-ground pool while cooking dinner or entertaining.

The bedroom/bathroom ratio is well balanced too with 2 bedrooms and one bath upstairs, a bedroom wing downstairs with bathroom in between and a third bathroom adjourning a bedroom overlooking the backyard, which could be perfect for grandparents or guests.

There are living areas on both levels; double garaging with internal access; natural gas; floorboards throughout the downstairs living area; guest toilet and when you enter there is a clever entrance foyer to remove the wetsuit or hang the coat up before entering the house.

Is this the perfect beach house?

As you know Beach & Bay Realty has been making a huge effort to track auction results in our area since 2008 due to the lack of results that appeared in the papers. We realise it is a huge job for companies to track the whole of Sydney so we decided to take matters into our own hands so that we could be up to date with our marketplace.

Last weekend there were 9 auctions scheduled for Saturday 3rd July from Cronulla to Lilli Pilli, Sutherland Shire. On Friday afternoon all these auctions were going ahead except for 1 which was sold prior at 5/3-5 Coast Ave, Cronulla.

On Sat the Beach & Bay team attended each auction and the stats at the end of the day were 5 properties passed in at Caringbah (4 of these auctioned in 1 line), 1 property in Caringbah withdrawn from auction Sat morning and now for sale, 1 property in Lilli Pilli passed in and 1 property in Cronulla sold at auction. If we take the 4 properties auctioned in 1 line as 1 auction, the final auction clearance rate is 33% for our area.

Interesting then that Domain’s Home Price Guide website shows an auction clearance rate sydneywide of 64% for Saturday 3rd July? When I checked through the results the only 2 properties they had tracked in their statistics for suburbs in our area were the 2 properties in Cronulla that sold! So basically they were missing 7 auction results or 4 if we assume the 4 properties auctioned in 1 line were 1 property!

It begs the question how many auctions are being missed in other suburbs? It is a huge job to cover the whole of Sydney accurately and we know this from the experience of tracking the auctions just for our area. Auctions get pulled minutes before going to auction, auctions get passed in with a vendor bid and are published as passed in when they must be published as a vendor bid (false and misleading behaviour), auctions get postponed and sometimes wrong auction dates are advertised. Some are just simple mistakes some are misleading.

We will continue to track the auctions for Cronulla, Burraneer, Woolooware, Caringbah, Caringbah South, Dolans Bay and Lilli Pilli and whether you are an agent, vendor, buyer, interested neighbour you can make up your own mind as to how your suburb is doing!

I surf quite regularly in the waters off Botany National Park and Boat Harbour, and I have seen my fair share of wildlife. In the last few months I’ve seen a fully grown buck (male deer), seals, penguins, red-belly black snakes, turtles, dolphins and – regrettably – one tiger shark. But the most spectacular life experience I think I’ve had to date was with two whales. As we check the surf, we watched two whales breaching for at least half an hour just outside Bate Bay. Once we entered the water, within half an hour the two whales were less than 50 metres from where we were surfing, spouting water and rolling their giant fins and tails in the air. It was both terrifying and awe-inspiring at the same time to see such gentle giants cruise past completely unphased by our presence.

It would appear then that whale season is upon us! Every winter hundreds of whales hug the NSW coastline as they migrate north to breed. Late May through to early August is the best time to catch a glimpse of nature’s giants as the water temperatures start to decline.

Botany Bay National Park is running a whale watching shuttle service during the migration season. This service will take you from the main car park (just inside the entrance to the National Park) all the way out to Cape Solander, where you can watch the whales track north to breed. The service is free and runs every weekend from 11am – 4pm. For more information on the National Park’s whale watching activities, check their newly created website. For a map of where to sight whales in Sydney – see here.

Alternatively, Club O2 is running a whale-watching walking tour through the National Park. You’ll receive a guided tour along the 14km coastal track from Jibbon Beach down to Marley, as well as a hearty lunch and ferry fares. It’s a great way to get fit and enjoy the view at the same time. Prices start from $70 and the walk takes around 8 hours. Check out Club O2 online for more details.

Photo by Kate Gray taken from Wild About Whales