Sellers Guide

Listing Your Property

Once you decide the time is right, we will provide you with a comprehensive market appraisal of your property and formal agency agreement outlining all the terms and conditions of our relationship along with the chosen method of sale. Once you sign the agency – IQ goes to work.

Administration and Documentation

You will be required to provide us with the  documentation we require for AML verification  and authorisation for us to gather any other information such as Body Corporate disclosure documents, management details, LIM reports and so on. We procure all the information at our cost.

Marketing & Advertising

IQ undertakes to pay for all marketing costs.  We will organise all photography, 3D filming, floorplan production, videography, signage, digital and print collateral and we will place and pay for featured advertising packages on key web portals.  Once you sign an agency with us – we do the rest.

Viewings

We will liaise with you, your management company, your tenants to ensure a smooth and stress-free viewing programme and to minimise any interruption to tenants and guests.  We also provide full 3D walk-throughs to enable our buyers to view your property online..

Offers and Negotiations

We will discuss all offers with you both formal and informal.  All written offers are required to be presented to you by law but it is entirely up to you whether you accept, reject or negotiate.  This is the point where you will need to engage with your solicitor to get contractual advice. We will guide you through this process to ensure we get you the best possible result.

Confirmation and Settlement

Once an offer is accepted we will then manage the buyer though the confirmation process.  IQ will work with your lawyer, your management company and your body corporate to ensure everything comes together as planned and the handover is smooth for all involved.

When it comes to the marketing and sale of lifestyle investment properties here in Queenstown we are acutely aware that in the vast majority of instances our vendors are non-resident. As such, the first and most important step is choosing an agent you know you can trust to manage the entire process on your behalf, who is an expert in the style of property you are selling and who will get you the best result.

The right agent is not necessarily the one who gives you the highest appraisal. You want an agent with whom you can have open and frank conversations with when it comes to establishing the market value and who will get to know you and your situation and who will give you some honest advice as to whether now is the right time to sell or not.

You want an agent who knows and understands the market, who knows your property and what it is worth and who can guide you through the entire sales process.

At IQ we pride ourselves on the level of care we take of our clients and the professional and expert advice we are able to provide. Often this may be not to sell, but when the decision is made to go to market you can rest assured we will take care of everything and that we will do our utmost to get you the best result.

Market Appraisal
Even if you are just thinking of selling, we recommend that the first thing you do is request a comprehensive market appraisal from the agent(s) you are considering using to sell your property.  This will give you a good sense what your property is worth in the current market, what other properties similar to yours have sold and at what price, what other properties similar to yours are currently available for sale and what are the current market conditions.  But most importantly, it will also give you a good insight into the level of understanding an agent has of your property and the market as a whole.

Appoint your Agent
Once you have decided which agent you want to appoint to sell your property they will provide you with an Agency Agreement which is a legally binding contract between you and the real estate agency and outlines property details, disclosure obligations, method of sale, commission, marketing plan and the term of the agreement. You should get legal advice before signing any agency agreement. Click Here for the REA guide to Agency Agreements.

Depending on how long ago you purchased your property, it is likely that the sale process is now quite different – especially in the managed apartment sector.

All Real Estate agents in New Zealand are now required to have a signed Agency Agreement and undertaken Client Due Diligence (CDD) to satisfy AML/CFT legislation before we can introduce any potential buyers to your property.

You also need to engage a New Zealand lawyer to represent you and they will also need to undertake their own CDD before they can onboard you as a client.  As such, we strongly urge that as soon as you decide to sell your property that you engage  local solicitor ASAP.

Depending on your property, you will also need to provide your agent with:

• A current, signed Management Agreement
• An up to date schedule of returns (last 12 months as a minimum)
• The last 3 years of Body Corporate AGM minutes, annual levies, annual budget, insurance certificate of currency, schedule of planned works and longterm maintenance plan
• Pre-Contract Disclosure Statement
• Authorisation, via the property manager / management company, to show your apartment to prospective buyers
• A full furniture package schedule

IQ has strong existing relationships with most local management companies and body corporates and with your authority will procure all this information on your behalf and at our cost.

Sole / Exclusive Agency
The most common type of Agreement. It is an exclusive, binding contract for a designated period of time with a single Real Estate Agency to market and sell the property on your behalf.

Trusted with the responsibility of being a Sole Agent for the sale of your property, your elected Agent has a very important responsibility to you. At IQ we take this responsibility seriously and will make a contribution to your marketing costs when you list with us exclusively. And as a small, specialist agency we can assure you of our commitment to deliver the highest level of service and achieve the best possible result.

General Agency
An arrangement to sell your property with usually two or more Real Estate Agencies. You can invite additional Agencies to help you sell at any time and you are also able to sell your property privately without incurring any agency fees.

With more than one agency working your property there is a perception of an extended pool of buyers. You can also sell it yourself without paying a fee. It is likely however, your property will not receive the focus and dedicated effort it deserves in order to get you the best possible result. There is less accountability to you and there may be a temptation for the agent to achieve a quick sale – before someone else does.

General Agencies can also cause confusion amongst buyers and disruption for management companies as various agents (typically non-specialist) seek to take buyers through properties without the level of care and attention to detail as those agents specialising in this market and who have long-term established relationships with staff and management.

A major component of any marketing campaign, for any product, is EXPOSURE. This is most definitely true in the competitive Queenstown environment. In this mainly investor driven sector where prospective buyers are often in town for only a limited period of time or in some instances buying site unseen from offshore, it is essential your property is elevated and promoted ‘up front’ with marketing activity planned and tailored to target and meet the needs of this specific market.

Traditional marketing activities by traditional, generalist real estate agencies is not what is required to get you the best result for your lifestyle investment property.  AT IQ we specialise in the marketing and sale of lifestyle investment property and we know our marketing packages work.  That is why, if you give us your commitment by way of a sole agency, we will make a commitment back to you by paying for your marketing and administrative expenses – so the only cost to you is our commission – when we sell your property.

While there are a range of options available when selling your property including listing with a price, auction, deadline sale and tender, there are a range of considerations you need to bear in mind when choosing which is most appropriate for your property.

We are typically dealing with prospective buyers who are non-resident in Queenstown. Most of whom have visited Queenstown at some point in time and have inspected various apartments during their stay, but are not necessarily actively looking.

As such, it takes time to re-engage with these buyers, introduce them to property options and work through a process of refining that search and affecting a sale.

Often these buyers will also want to wait until their next visit to inspect what is available at that time and make a purchase decision on that basis.

Also, for the most part, the purchases made by the majority of buyers in this market are relatively low in terms of an emotional connection with the property as they are looking for the best option from an investment/ROI perspective.

When you combine this with the fact that many apartments are competing in what is fundamentally a commodity market and it is little wonder that it is difficult to create a sense of urgency in the market unless there is something very compelling about the offer such as a “fantastic price / ROI” or a significantly discounted price.

As such, at IQ we are not typically inclined to recommend auction, tender or deadline sale, but firmly believe that apart from very special circumstances, the best method of sale is to list your property either “by negotiation” or at a price and to commit to a marketing campaign of at least 3 months (longer if your apartment is listed outside the peak visitor seasons of Dec-March and July-Sept.

By law, all written offers, irrespective of price, must be presented to you. We will be there for advice and will help guide you through the process. Our salespeople are skilled negotiators and will work with the buyer, on your behalf, to get you the best price possible. There may be some back and forth while we negotiate the price and conditions – and each time this happens the agreement will be amended and initialled by the party making the amendment.

Once your offer has been accepted:

• There maybe conditions on the offer, such as the buyers being satisfied with a building report. If so, these will need to be met before the offer becomes unconditional
• Once an agreement is unconditional, neither the buyer or the seller can change their mind, and the buyer must pay the required deposit which is then held in trust for a period of 10 working days before release.  For apartments and unit titled properties the deposit is held until such time as a pre-settlement disclosure statement has been provided.
• The rest of the purchase price is payable on the agreed settlement date
• Prior to settlement the buyer is entitled to undertake a pre-settlement inspection (or have a representative undertake that inspection on their behalf) to check everything is as it was at the time of the agreement being confirmed.
• Once your solicitor advises us, in writing, that the settlement has taken place we then release the keys – and/or advise the management company and body corporate that the change of ownership has taken place