Questions

Straight answers about selling a house.

Sixty questions people ask before they sell, answered properly. Where the answer is a rule, the rule is named. Where it depends, it says what on. Where nobody can honestly tell you, it says that too.

What it costs

The fee, the marketing, and what happens to the money.

What does it cost to sell a house in Auckland?Selling costs fall into four groups: the agency fee with GST on top, the marketing spend, the work you do to get the house ready, and your lawyer. None of them is fixed in advance, and the total depends on your property and the campaign you run.
How does real estate commission work in New Zealand?Commission is a term of the agency agreement between you and the agency, not a set scale. It is usually calculated on the sale price, GST is added on top, and it is normally deducted from the deposit held in the agency trust account once the sale is done.
Do I pay anything if my house does not sell?The agency fee is tied to the event named in your agency agreement, so where that event is a sale, no sale means no fee. Marketing and preparation costs are a different thing and are normally yours whether the house sells or not.
Who pays for the marketing when you sell a house?The seller pays for marketing, and it is charged separately from the agency fee. The amount, what it buys and when it is invoiced are all agreed in writing before the campaign starts.
Why is your fee not on your website?Because every sale is a different amount of work, and a published number would have to be wrong for one of them. The fee is worked out at the appraisal against the job in front of us, and it goes in writing into the agency agreement before anything starts.
Is real estate commission negotiable in New Zealand?Yes. There is no regulated commission scale in New Zealand, so the fee is simply a term of the agency agreement between you and the agency, and terms are negotiable until they are signed.

The agency agreement

What you are signing, how long it binds you, and how to get out of it.

What it is worth

Appraisals, valuations, rateable values, and how a price gets set.

How to sell it

Auction, deadline sale or a price on the ad, and what each one does.

Getting it ready

Repairs, paint, staging, reports, and what you have to tell buyers.

Offers and conditions

What an offer actually commits you to, and what the conditions mean.

Time and settlement

How long it takes, settlement day, and what can move the date.

Money and tax

The bright line test, break costs, and what you walk away with.

Selling and buying at once

Sell first or buy first, bridging, and lining up two settlements.

Particular situations

Tenants, estates, separations, cross leases, unit titles, unconsented work.

Thinking about selling?

An appraisal is a written estimate of what your home is worth, with the sales it rests on set out beside it. It is free, it puts you under no obligation, and you will not be chased afterwards.

Book a free appraisal Work out what you would walk away with