Step into the sun-kissed world of Sydney's Northern Beaches with the dynamic duo Lisa and Mark Novak, whose expertise in real estate is as deep as the ocean they live by. Unveil the mysteries and opportunities within this prestigious market, as we chat about everything from sleeper suburbs brimming with investment potential to navigating the tides of buying and selling property. This episode promises a trove of insights and strategies, not just for snagging your slice of coastal paradise but also for understanding the intricate dance between market sentiment and economic influences like interest rates and construction costs.
With the Novaks' vibrant energy guiding us through tales of personal growth and sage advice, you'll appreciate the authenticity that underpins not just their success but the entire real estate industry. We celebrate the nuances of fostering strong client relationships and reveal the kind of customer service that leaves an indelible mark. Lisa and Mark's journey, peppered with anecdotes from their trailblazing career, illustrates the impact of decisions and underscores the importance of conviction in paving your own property path.
Join us as we navigate the lush landscape of the Northern Beaches property market, pinpointing undervalued suburbs poised for growth, and demystifying the complexities of market trends. Listen closely as we dissect the dynamics between real estate agents and buyers' agents, and the value that both bring to the table. Whether you're a seasoned investor or taking your first plunge into the property pool, this conversation with Lisa and Mark Novak is your compass to charting a course through the exciting and ever-evolving world of real estate.
Step into the sun-kissed world of Sydney's Northern Beaches with the dynamic duo Lisa and Mark Novak, whose expertise in real estate is as deep as the ocean they live by. Unveil the mysteries and opportunities within this prestigious market, as we chat about everything from sleeper suburbs brimming with investment potential to navigating the tides of buying and selling property. This episode promises a trove of insights and strategies, not just for snagging your slice of coastal paradise but also for understanding the intricate dance between market sentiment and economic influences like interest rates and construction costs.
With the Novaks' vibrant energy guiding us through tales of personal growth and sage advice, you'll appreciate the authenticity that underpins not just their success but the entire real estate industry. We celebrate the nuances of fostering strong client relationships and reveal the kind of customer service that leaves an indelible mark. Lisa and Mark's journey, peppered with anecdotes from their trailblazing career, illustrates the impact of decisions and underscores the importance of conviction in paving your own property path.
Join us as we navigate the lush landscape of the Northern Beaches property market, pinpointing undervalued suburbs poised for growth, and demystifying the complexities of market trends. Listen closely as we dissect the dynamics between real estate agents and buyers' agents, and the value that both bring to the table. Whether you're a seasoned investor or taking your first plunge into the property pool, this conversation with Lisa and Mark Novak is your compass to charting a course through the exciting and ever-evolving world of real estate.
Welcome to the Property Buyer Podcast, where we explore the world of residential and commercial real estate to help you make better decisions about buying, selling or investing in all types of property. Join me, rich Harvey, ceo of propertybuyercomau and multi-award winning buyers advocate. Our podcast features expert interviews, market trends and insights and practical tips for navigating the complex world of Australian real estate. Whether you're a home buyer, a seasoned property investor, commercial buyer, developer or simply curious about the property market, our podcast is for you. Join us as we share our knowledge, strategies and experience and help you achieve your property goals. We share our knowledge, strategies and experience and help you achieve your property goals. Welcome to our next edition of the Property Buyer Podcast.
Speaker 1:Sydney's northern beaches used to be a well-kept secret, but now the word is well and truly out. Our scores of buyers are looking for a piece of paradise. From Manly to Palm Beach, to Middle Harbour, suburbs of Seaforth, clontarf or Killarney Heights, to the acreages around Ingleside or Terry Hills, or to the family friendly suburbs of French's Forest and Forestville, there's something to suit everyone looking for their next home or investment property. My guests today on the podcast are the dynamic duo of Lisa and Mark Novak, who've been awarded some of the top accolades for their sales performance and also their social media reach. Lisa's been ranked in the top 100 agents across the country and been awarded the most innovative woman in real estate by REB. In this episode, we'll discover what's happening on the northern beaches. We'll discuss undervalued suburbs, what's the mood of buyers and how to get into the local market. Lisa and Mark welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:It's a pleasure. Now I'm going to hit you with a hard one up front, and I didn't tell you about this, but we have a thought of the week right, so put your brain cells in, and the thought of the week this week is from Stephen Covey, one of my favourite authors, who says I'm not a product of my circumstances.
Speaker 2:I'm a product of my decisions.
Speaker 1:What do you take from?
Speaker 3:that quote. He wants to have a crack Over to you, mark. I believe that I think that we're making thousands of decisions every day and if you can get on balance, you know those things right. It just, yeah, it definitely sets you in the right direction. And they're not, and I think that people don't really have that. A lot of people don't have that common sense to apply those right decisions to those thousands of decisions in that day. So, yeah, big time.
Speaker 2:I agree, yeah, and look often these decisions or thoughts that we've got in our own mind. But a lot of people let noise get in the way of that, and I know that was certainly something that happened to me when I first started in real estate. I let the noise get in the way, and when I actually just stuck to what I believed in and what my decisions were, that's when I really felt that things took off Correct. So I think you know you've got to make the decision and stand by it, and if you do make a mistake, it's not the end of the world.
Speaker 1:That's it. You've got to keep moving forward. Well, it's been a good decision for you guys to come on the podcast and a good decision for our listeners to listen. Right there you go, yes. So first question for you both how did you get into real estate and what attracted you to work in the industry? Lisa, do you want to kick it off?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so look, I actually haven't been in real estate sales for all that long. I've been in real estate sales for just over five years.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:But I've been working behind the scenes in the industry for a lot longer, but real estate sales really was where I wanted to be. But you know, the business needed me elsewhere and the kids they were younger, they're adult children now. They also needed me at home. So I kind of dived head first into real estate sales about five and a half years ago and had seen a lot while I was sitting on the outside looking in, and so it's been great to actually be able to put all those wheels in motion.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Yeah. What do you love about it? Do you like the the cut and thrust of negotiating? Do you like listing your property, seeing happy vendors? What is it that gives you a buzz?
Speaker 2:all of the above, but most of all and I know it sounds very cliche, but most of all really just helping people yeah. I really do. I genuinely get a kick out of that. But but you know, love dealing with my vendors, love going into listing presentations, you know, and just having the capability and capacity to be able to change people's lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, mark, what about for you? What attracted you?
Speaker 3:I left school at 17 and loved car stereos and I got in I went to Stratford Car Radios. They put on this like hectic engineer of a guy and me and said I'm going to give you guys two weeks and see who gets the job. Didn't last. And some cousins at the time, my godparents, whatever they said I would do, and for five years I just thought that was the best thing ever. And they said you should get into real estate. That's all they had to say. And, um, I guess I just didn't know. Do you know what I mean? So I went in and and just just yeah, everything worked, so it just flowed from there wonderful, yeah, so it's fantastic yeah simple stuff.
Speaker 1:So team novak's growing quite a bit. I've been observing and driving down pitwater road and your offices seem to get better and flashier and there's more people. There's more signs out every weekend that I'm seeing. But tell me about what suburbs you cover and how many people in Team Novak.
Speaker 2:So we cover a lot of suburbs pretty much north side of the bridge, all the way through to Palm Beach. So we have quite a large catchment and sometimes vendors do ask us to sell out of area. I'm actually just about to list a property in Mossman and in terms of our team, we're a team of 45, which has grown considerably over the 22 years that we've been in business.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, that's great, great achievement, guys. Well done, it's really good. Do you find there's more sort of suburbs that you get better concentration in than other suburbs?
Speaker 3:Yeah, Look, I think that the function of what we do, you can sort of blueprint, you know, and the only thing that sort of holds us back is physically getting to the place. So as long as it's, you know, within sort of 10, 15 minutes drive, well, we're good.
Speaker 1:We're real good, fantastic, yeah, I think it works well, yeah, yeah, so tell us more about the Northern Beaches for our listeners. Like, what do you see as the unique, perhaps defining features of the Northern Beaches property market? And secondly, how do you sell that to buyers? What does it sell itself?
Speaker 2:It kind of sells itself. I mean, you know a lot of people refer to the northern beaches as God's country and for many intents and purposes it really is. There's not that many areas where you can go to and a buyer says, well, how far to the beach? And you go, which beach would you like? You know there's hundreds of them around us and it is still very, very affordable when you compare these types of suburbs that have got great proximity to just so many things. You know, when you compare the northern beaches to areas like the eastern suburbs, it is still so affordable here, isn't it? Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1:I'm finding that too in our inquiry levels, Like if someone's got $7 million, we'll talk a higher budget right now for a minute. But $7 million and what they can get in Vaucluse for seven million versus what they can get seven million on the northern beaches is vastly different couldn't agree more, so, fun fact, I'm actually born and bred eastern suburbs and you know I'm always comparing property prices in the east areas like Tamarama and.
Speaker 2:Bronte and Bellevue Hill, you know where these properties are fetching upwards of 20-30 million dollars, you know, and if you took that fetching upwards, of $20, $30 million, you know, and if you took that kind of budget and brought that here to the beaches, you're going to almost own suburbs.
Speaker 1:So you know it's quite incredible. Yeah, tell me more and jump in Mark too, about pricing on the Northern Beaches. So for those that aren't familiar, who perhaps listen to this podcast, what's an entry level house going to cost? You know and again we might need to mention specific areas and cost but if you want to buy a basic three bedroom, one bath, one car home, just as an entry level, what sort of dollars do we need for that?
Speaker 3:I'd say one nine suburbs like French's Forest. So we're pretty much a skinny coastline that goes from the CBD of Sydney. We get to the Spit Bridge, that's where we start, and then we go all the way up to the peninsula of sort of Palm Beach. So the further you go away from that beach or the further you go, even sometimes away from that city, then the values will pull back a little bit more. So you're one-nines.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one-nine, okay, yeah, great. And what about an entry-level apartment? So you know, like a first-time?
Speaker 2:buyer. You know an early entry investor. What have they got to spend to get into an apartment? So I just sold one, actually a one bedder in DY that had no parking, but it sold for $600,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so relatively affordable when you consider that you were literally one minute walk to the beach and then you swing around the other way and you're one minute walk to a bus that's going to have you in the CBD in about 40 minutes, so still pretty affordable. They're few and far between, but you can still get great value at sort of $750,000 to $800,000.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, yeah. So say, I've got a budget of $2.5 million, right, and I'm a mum and dad and I've got two kids. Where could I buy a house for that sort of money, do you think?
Speaker 2:I just sold one in Marowena yesterday, you know, and look, that was great buying, it was smart buying. It was a beautifully renovated four-bedroom house in Narrowena. But, the gold was it had a two-bedroom granny flat attached to it. Perfect, it was bringing in $720 a week Wow. So if you're a young family and you're going, goodness me those interest rates have just gone up times three, and then you've got sort of $720 to $800 a week coming in as well.
Speaker 1:That certainly helps the bottom line, doesn't? It Makes for smart buying, and that one sold for $2.5. Wow, wow. So you must see a lot of different buyer types coming through your open houses. Tell me about the demographics, the types of buyers that are coming through. Are they local, out of area types of buyers that are coming through?
Speaker 3:are they local, out of area? Tell me what the sorts of people coming through very local, I think people um a good 60, 70 percent are within um, you know, within the suburbs and then. Then there's this con. There's that, those people the head sort of north. So you need people in moss and cremon and then the odds, you know bondi and places like that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, it's very local, yeah, and I have to say it's been quite interesting actually and I find, particularly over the last 12 months, we've had a lot of crossover between you know, from buyers that are coming from Mossman over to the northern beaches. I had a property that was on the market on the headland in North Curl Curl and it was almost like a running joke on the market on the headland in North Curl Curl and it was almost like a running joke Every buyer would walk in and be like where are you selling at the moment?
Speaker 2:Oh, in Mossman. Every other buyer. And the reason is the beach is not that close and it's a very busy suburb and they're getting huge property prices over there. So you sell up for $10, you can bank some money and come and live in a phenomenal property for circa $8 million here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, fantastic. And what about the North Shore buyers? Because there used to be quite the leafy change to the sea change. You get the people that have had the kids going through private school and then the parents want to downsize. Are you seeing a bit of that as well, coming through?
Speaker 2:Lots of it. And also, you know, look COVID, obviously changed a lot you know where people have got this versatile working environment and where they were traveling into the CBD five times a week they're doing it now two, three times a week yeah and so they're able to um, you know, push out further north. So yeah, absolutely, we are yeah fantastic now.
Speaker 1:What's the mood of the market out there amongst buyers? Is a buyer's kind of hesitant like we've? We've had this. You know we're recording this in may of 2024 and there's been talk of potentially one more rate rise to contain inflation and you know the cuts are going to be delayed. Is that sort of holding buyers back? What's the mood of the market at the moment?
Speaker 3:I think the, the, it's the change that rattles people um, when the rates are sort of up or down, that's when, that's when we see, then you, that's when we see real difference. But when it's settled even it's settled now at 6-odd percent it's a very good, very strong market. We actually have I read some data the other night for 15 months we've had consecutive price increases through an environment where interest rates went from 2% to 6%. So when it calms down, it's very positive.
Speaker 1:Are buyers hesitating for any other reasons apart from interest rates? Do you think?
Speaker 2:Look, there is a little bit of a waiting game going on at the moment, and buyers I often ask what are you waiting for? Are we waiting for the interest rates to come down, or we're waiting for more stock to come on the market, or we're waiting for prices to drop, and I think they're going to be waiting a while, to be honest with you Stock levels right now. When I checked yesterday across the Northern Beaches are sitting at about 620. That's collectively houses and apartments.
Speaker 2:Now that is not a huge amount of stock. The lowest I've ever seen them was sitting at about $450. So you know, we're not too far off that and we can't. We're not seeing a huge amount of stock coming on either, we're just not no.
Speaker 1:And obviously, with construction prices going up, a lot people are hesitant to build. Are you seeing that sort of phenomenon in the Northern Beaches as well? People are unwilling to renovate, unwilling to knock down and rebuild as much as they were, perhaps, when construction costs were a bit more normalised.
Speaker 3:Yeah, definitely, the pipe's quite long, though, so I think that those decisions aren't changed overnight or over a month or two. These guys that are actually building have made this decision two, three years ago and financed it one year ago, so they're sort of in, yeah, but I think, looking forward for the next one to three years, yeah, I think people are sort of putting I think it could be a better alternative just to actually buy something rather than do the reno, so we have a constant discussion with our clients, just like you're saying what are you waiting for?
Speaker 1:it's a great question to ask because, yeah, people often have this false thinking that if they wait, that prices will drop low enough that they can then get in. But look what happened in COVID, the Northern Beaches prices went up 38.5% in a year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1:In a year and a half. It was insane. It did come back a bit about 10%, 15%, but, as you know, the constriction on supply is continuing to make the Northern Beaches one of the premier investment locations and lifestyle locations, as well, yeah, 100%, and waiting's easy, waiting's easy.
Speaker 3:And you know, making the excuses is real easy. So, I think you know putting your finger on the trigger and pulling it. It's a lot of work, it's stress but, it's very rewarding. So I think, on balance, most people wait.
Speaker 2:You know, but then there's the odd people go, go, go go and those go get us profit and chances are that property market's coming up. So if you're buying in now, then you can enjoy all of that growth of the property market. It's unlikely that the interest rates are going to go up. I don't have a crystal ball, please don't hold me to this but it's unlikely. They're certainly not going to go up 13 times again. They're also probably not going to come down 13 times.
Speaker 2:But, you know they are going to come down, and so once that happens I think everyone knows the market's just going to take off.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Next year, I think, will be a year of enormous growth for the property market.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I do a lot of other analysis of the market and a lot of webinars as well, and I'm saying to everybody, the minute that an interest rate cut is locked in, say the month before you watch the market surge, and once the rate cuts happened, it will absolutely surge again, even if it's just a 0.25%, because then everyone knows that interest rates have peaked and therefore the projection is that rates will drop, but they're probably going to drop about six times. So about 1% to one point two, five, one point five percent roughly, which will take the cash rate down to about three percent. So you've got a five percent mortgage rate. That'll probably where the market will sit, is my prediction. Yeah, so we've talked about buyer sentiment. Um, let's talk about vendor sentiment, because you see a lot of indoors more than we do, right? So what's in the mind of the vendor at the moment? Are they still nervous? Are they wanting to, to pull the trigger? Tell them what's going on in the family home when you're having discussions about listing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So a lot of people are still also just playing that waiting game and that's why we're not seeing an enormous amount of stock coming to market. You know a lot of vendors are nervous that if they sell, what are they going to buy? I actually just finished up an appraisal just now. They're pretty keen to, you know, dip their toes in and and maybe test the market, but they're very nervous about what are they going to buy. And then you know a lot of people just simply don't want to come off interest rates that they're locked into onto a much higher interest rate as well. But you know they there.
Speaker 2:There is a lot of hesitation out there with vendors and you know vendors that are looking for something a lot more than what the market's willing to actually give at the moment. They're just going to sit around on the market. Vendors that are realistic about what they're wanting out of the market. That stock is moving along very quickly, sort of within about two weeks average days on market. But look, I think you know the good thing is we and this is not a plug for us and Novak and the sort of marketing that we offer but we actually did come up with a strategy about five years ago for vendors that were just sort of sitting on the fence going will I, won't I, what will I do? Don't really want to do an auction campaign, don't really fancy spending lots and lots of money on marketing. So we actually came up with a $0 marketing strategy which allows vendors to just dip their toes in Test the market.
Speaker 2:Yep test the market, do a pre-market.
Speaker 1:To your database or to the overall market.
Speaker 2:To the database, which is a very active database, and also out to our social media channels, which is also extremely active. You know we transact a huge amount of stock that way. Things aren't selling cheaply. We're not here to sell them quickly but, certainly, if a vendor's got a dream price in their mind and we can achieve that easily for them, that's a good option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. Yeah, we really appreciate you tuning in to the Property Buyer Podcast and I hope that you're finding our expert interviews helpful. So that we can keep providing this information and growing our audience, we rely on word of mouth recommendations. If you found this information useful, could I please ask you to share this podcast with your friends, family and colleagues and ask them to subscribe to the Property Buyer Podcast? It would be a big help and we'd be very grateful for your support. Thanks once again for sharing the links, and now let's get back to the podcast. How do you deal with vendors that are just unrealistic? I guess I mean, obviously in your listing presentations you'd show comparable sales, but what do you do with a vendor that says look, I want 20% more than the best price ever in this suburb? We normally like when they're asleep.
Speaker 3:We'll go to their house very, very late at night.
Speaker 3:Look, I think it's, that's a joke. Look, it's educating them, yeah, and when they, it's appealing to what the motivation is of what they're trying to achieve. And I think sometimes people vendors will lose sight of that. They'll get caught up in, you know, if it's a low offer, the personality or whatever, but it's like hang on a second, hang on a second. Let's just look at getting you to that, getting you from A to B. So we had a client recently that was moving from one house to a larger house and it was understanding that you know they were in a better position when they moved to that next house they're a better family, they're a better.
Speaker 3:It's like you know the money, the main money may not be there, but you're actually getting from, so they'll get caught up on that $50,000. It's like let's do the maths, let's do the family scenario, let's do the health scenario, let's do the kids and how long are the kids going to be around for to enjoy the new house? And then they look at it in a different way. So it's not just educating them on ramming an offer down their throat. It's about let's have a look at holistically what you're trying to achieve, yes, and are you in a better position not to sell? Maybe, yeah, or are you in an actually overall better position to move into that next part of your life? That's it, you know. It's just yeah, I think going through that with them that.
Speaker 2:Are you better or are you worse? Game.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I've actually just come off the phone not very long ago today, just prior to you coming in having this conversation, and so you know it's a vendor that was looking for big money on her property and I literally went through with her properties that have recently sold and said here's one that sold for X. Do you think you are better or worse than this? Property and let them come to their own realisation, because, you know, at the end of the day, the facts are there. We've got the data. That's it, you know that's it.
Speaker 1:Great discussion, yeah, yeah, fantastic. Putting your crystal ball hat on prices on the Northern Beaches you mentioned sort of they're edging up. Do you think they're going to be the next 10 years? Where do you think they're going to go?
Speaker 2:Oh look, this market. I mean Probably half of what they are.
Speaker 3:That's never happened.
Speaker 2:That's never happened. Look, you know, if you look back over 40 years, I think you know Mark's always very good at saying you know you let sort of history tell the picture, don't you. So if you look back to help us see what's going to happen ahead, that speaks volumes about the Northern Beaches market Totally. It's always been one of the best performing markets and it's just going to continue to get better and better and better. There's no doubt in my mind.
Speaker 1:Well, I did some analysis the other day with a colleague who runs MicroBirds, who are data nerds, and I extracted the last 25 years worth of data for each of the capital cities. And Sydney's median house price for the last 25 years has been around 7.4% on a compounding average. So I took the median price at the end of last year, which is about close to $1.4 million, transposed it 20 years ahead, guess what the median price is going to be in 2043? It's going to be $5 million. That's just 20 years away, right? So you guys still might be running Novacs, you might have handed over the reins, but $5 million Today's median price Domain came out there. Their figure was $1.6, but you think, far out $5 million.
Speaker 1:How are my kids ever going to afford it? When you think about those numbers, it can do two things. It can you can scare the pants off you or it could motivate you. So I try to use it as an education tool to say look, one of the seventh wonders of the world is compound growth and you're far better to be in the property market than be out of the property market. And probably people listening to this are going far out. What about my kids? How are they? Are they ever going to cope with it?
Speaker 1:Well, you can help your kids out. The bank of mum and dad is alive and well and there's ways, if you structure it the right way. With a mortgage broker you can do what's called a limited equity guarantee loan. You could even pull out 100 grand out of your own property. You don't give it to your kid, but you loan it on a short-term basis for years, and then, when the property is increased in value, you can release that guarantee. So there are ways that parents can help their their kids out. But I guess the message is that prices aren't going backward anytime soon. And if you look at a lifestyle destination like the northern beaches, which has got some of the best beaches in the world, like whenever I travel overseas, I come home and go, why did I travel here? The beach here and manly's fantastic or Curly's beautiful, right you know. And look.
Speaker 3:I think to add to that people forget it's very sort of animal kingdom, it's very human nature of what attracts people and that fundamentally doesn't change over hundreds or thousands of years, like. So, at the end of the day, people look at, you know, water, they like it, yeah. They look at weather, they love it, you know. So I think, fundamentally, the areas that have performed well historically, like those base things, are not changing Exactly. So at the end of the day, those good areas are going to perform well for those same reasons they did in the past. It sounds very boring and drab, but I know sometimes people get very analytical about it. But I think at the end of the day and the asset class of property is one of the only asset classes that you can I know you mentioned compounding, but you can actually leverage and you can leverage 20 to 80%.
Speaker 3:You can't do that with Bitcoin. Exactly you can't. It's very difficult and a little bit dangerous to do that. So when you're leveraging that dollar to $4 or $5, and then when you're compounding on that, that's incredible. On 7.4%, absolutely, mate, that is incredible. That's gold, isn't it.
Speaker 1:And then I haven't even mentioned rental yield on top of that either, correct?
Speaker 3:And if you think about it, banks have this conscious decision they can lend on Bitcoin? They don't. They can lend on this? They don't, but they have nominated property as the one they will lend on that rests well with me as well as a person, to go. Well, if it's good enough for a bank, it's good enough for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally with you on that, Mark. I want you to put your thinking cap on for undervalued suburbs on the Northern Beaches. So are there any kind of little insights we can give our investor listeners on this podcast or tips for inspiring investors on what you would say would be a relatively undervalued area on the Northern Beaches and really has probably more scope for growth than the neighbouring suburbs? What do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, there's quite a few areas. And again, you know, if I draw back to the fact that I'm eastern suburbs born and bred, I still look at a lot of these properties and think to myself you can't even get a two-bedroom apartment in Bondi for the price that that house just sold for.
Speaker 1:Exactly.
Speaker 2:It's true. So you know I'd have to say that probably the areas that are pushing away a little bit from walking distance to the beach, because obviously that's a big drawcard for the northern beaches. So as you start to move further up the hill away from the beaches, you've got some great areas like Forestville, like Narrowena, like Cromer. You know these are still relatively affordable areas for people that are wanting to go and buy a house on a decent-sized block of land. As I just mentioned earlier on, I just sold one there for, you know, circa $2.5 million.
Speaker 2:Now, $2.5 million is still a lot of money, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't buy you much in areas like the eastern suburbs. Yet on the northern beaches you can still get a house. But, there's a lot of room there for growth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what about Cromart and North Narrabeen?
Speaker 2:What do you think about those areas?
Speaker 1:for growth yeah absolutely there is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, look, I think you know we just sold a house, actually a few weeks ago, at auction in North Narrabeen and that sold for around $1.8 million Now, albeit the house needed an enormous amount of work. But you know, if you're handy and you want to go and spend a little bit of money on, your property you're going to be living in a great location walking distance to the lake, to the beach, to transport, to wonderful shops and restaurants. You know, and you're able to get into the market at circa 1.8 mil.
Speaker 1:Fantastic, brilliant, yeah.
Speaker 3:Good buying? I think to answer that question in a different way, covid, really, covid brought on 2% interest rates and I think 2% interest rates anyone could do what they want, literally financially. When it came to property, a lot of people entered into houses um, because you know you can and you know you're in your home. More, because it's covered. That's changed. Money is three times more expensive. Strata in our area here on average in every unit suburb has done about seven, a rolling average of 75 percent over 10 years so that means, it has not doubled.
Speaker 3:It's done 75%, but houses have done about 130 to 140% in every housing suburb. I've never seen such a large gap. So to answer your question, my opinion is DY Parts of the unit areas, the unit suburbs. I think you're gonna see tremendous growth over the next three years On the back of it's more, the people are finding it difficult to rent, rent to rate. They wanna buy something and they'll get in at an entry level, affordable Yep affordable is the catch word.
Speaker 1:Absolutely 100% agree with that. Mark Couldn't have said it better myself what's been your experience dealing with buyers' agents and how does that sort of interaction compare with the ordinary buyer that you come across? How's that been for you guys?
Speaker 3:It's sort of like Russia and Ukraine. Yeah, yeah, it's sort of Israeli conflict. No, look, when it's a great buyer, it's the same as real estate agents. When it's a great real estate agent or a great buyer's agent unbelievable, it's fantastic. So I like to stick to that. Do you know what I mean? I think when they're good, it's the same with lawyers. Sometimes you get lawyers that think they're real estate agents, and when they're very good at practicing what they're good at, they're just unbelievable. And buyer's agents, the same thing. But I think sometimes they think they are Better than you. Yeah, you know, it's like I've done your job before and there you do it. That's right.
Speaker 1:Forget that. As long as it's professional. Yeah, that's exactly right, Like in any industry.
Speaker 2:Well, like in any industry, I'm sort of sitting here quietly in the corner, but you know, look, no, exactly what you said, mark. I mean, like in any industry, you've got your good and you've got your not so good, and I've had experiences on both sides. But you know, recently I had a wonderful experience with a great buyer's agent.
Speaker 1:You just want to know, at the end of the day, like for me, being a buyer's agent myself, I want the agent to know that I'm representing my client's best interest, just like I'd want to know you are representing your vendor's best interest right Now. I'm not trying to trump you or try and pinch a property. I'm just going to present facts to you. Like if I'm negotiating with you, mark, I'm going to say look this property up in Campbell Parade. Here's the comparable sales. Why are you asking this price? It should be this. You look at me and go yeah, I agree, let's. We're professional about it. It's not trying to pull the wool over anyone's eyes.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. But I must say, as an agent who is dealing with you know, buyers' agents I often do have a little bit of a sigh of relief because on the other side you are dealing with someone who does have the experience Knows how it works. And knows how it works, and usually there's, you know, an enormous amount of speed involved as well, which is great, and so that ends up being a very successful outcome in the end.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. Where's the contract? Got the 66W, let's go.
Speaker 2:That's right, exactly, and that's music to any agency is. But, yeah, no it's, and that speed that's behind it as well is what's great for everyone, most importantly the vendor.
Speaker 1:Fantastic how do you? Present your properties for sale so that you get maximum impact. Like Lisa, you've won a lot of awards for social media stuff and you know. Is there any particular strategy or formula that you use for presenting properties and marketing properties?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is actually, so we do do things differently, in case you hadn't noticed.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:We've got what we call a staged marketing strategy. So there's a plan A, which is our pre-market $0 marketing strategy, and usually at that stage it's a property that is presented, sometimes in its raw form. Ie we are getting it all ready for market. So we're getting it maybe painted, carpeted, styled and ready for market. But in that stage we'll bring some buyers through and do they think they're getting it maybe painted, carpeted, styled and ready for market? But in that stage we'll bring some buyers through and do they think they're getting in early?
Speaker 1:so there's kind of a bit of a sense of anticipation there. Right, absolutely are getting in early.
Speaker 2:You know they're getting in early before we've launched it out to the real estate portals. But the benefit for the buyer is they actually have the opportunity of buying it while we're getting it already pre-market, opportunity of buying it while we're getting it already pre-market and the benefit for the vendor is that either we're getting a really fast, very successful sale, we're not here, to sell it cheaply.
Speaker 2:But you know, a buyer that's maybe missed out on multiple properties at an auction is going. I don't care if the walls are getting painted, just get me through before you've launched it out. And so it's been. You know it's been enormously successful for vendors and for buyers.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant.
Speaker 3:I also think that agents are not very good in the first two weeks of the auction campaign and they are very, very good in the last two weeks of the auction campaign. So they've actually they've dealt with the best buyers when they're not on point. And what I mean by that is you when you get, if you with. What I love about pre-market is you get to deal with the market before it's got to go to realestatecom. And what you mentioned in your question was presentation. People vote with their money, they will, will tell you and then you actually get it perfect, your dialogue perfect, your answer's perfect. Then you go into week one of an auction campaign. That's a better result for a seller.
Speaker 2:Yeah, gotcha yeah, it's a wonderful discovery phase as well, so if we do need to launch it out to the real estate portals where we know exactly where we're going to throw that dart fantastic but what I do know when I've sold properties that have been half built, half renovated you know, halfway getting painted. A buyer who is super motivated, who is ready to buy now and has missed out on multiple properties, I can tell you they don't care if the walls are pink and they're getting painted white next.
Speaker 2:Monday they just want to get in and they want that first advantage.
Speaker 1:First mover, tell me about how you approach the negotiation process with buyers and secondly, what sort of tip would you give to the ordinary buyer in the way they deal with you to get the best outcome?
Speaker 3:What do you reckon? What's your point to me for Lisa?
Speaker 2:Because sometimes Mark says oh, Lisa, you talk too much, I'm really just allowing you? I've noticed that today, have you noticed?
Speaker 1:that. Yeah, you noticed that very good. I'm just really allowing great interaction. Yeah, it's my pleasure, it's like.
Speaker 3:It's like playing tennis, it's like 80 20.
Speaker 1:that's all good, thank you but no, I'll hand it to you so how do you approach the negotiation process is really how do how do buyers get the? How should buyers approach you to get the best outcome is what I'm asking Sure, so look, I'll answer that, can I this?
Speaker 3:this never happens and I'm shocked. People are spending a million dollars, two million dollars, ring up the agent and say can I see you? If you set up a buyer meeting, an offer meeting, with a real estate agent, I think it is genius. You are buying something for a million dollars. I don't see many buyers agents doing it and I don't see many buyers doing it. And I've got to tell you that authenticity, that belly to belly, eyeball to eyeball is just so good. So I think the best way is just going for a good old-fashioned chat.
Speaker 3:And I reckon you'll get more out of the conversation than you I know you will than over a phone or an email or an SMS, like it is the best.
Speaker 2:And it just depends. I mean, we don't do cookie cutter. I know there's certain agencies that are only auction agencies or agents, depending on the property.
Speaker 2:For me as an agent, depends on how I'm going to run the campaign, depending on my vendors needs, depending on where the market is at. So at the moment, if I have a look at all of my listings, some are auction, some are private treaty and some are expressions of interest, so I've got a little bit of everything. How do we deal with the buyer? I always say to my buyers move fast, give me a good, strong offer quickly, because please don't call me up next week, upset because a property's sold.
Speaker 2:That's the reality, you know. I can't tell you how many times over the last couple of weeks I've actually run best and fairest on properties because I had multiple buyers run best and fairest on properties, because I had multiple buyers. Or sometimes we're selling pre-auction, pre-market. Things are closing out quickly if we received a very strong offer. So if you're a buyer and you're listening to this guys understand, move fast, hard and fast.
Speaker 1:I think a lot of on the buy side. That's why we win a lot of business, because people just think that agents are always going to play games with them. Right, there is this whole distrust in the industry of real estate agents. But I don't know what you're talking about. You know but? But when I come here, I mean you know if I come in and make an offer it's a genuine offer. You know, and I'm saying I tell the agent actually I've seen this property. I really like what I've just seen. I'll be sending you an offer tomorrow and being like I've got their attention. A lot of people are trying on, you know, fake that they're not really interested and then I might give you it like, be genuine about it.
Speaker 3:You know it's not to be any any harder. Speed and authenticity I guess into, I think, I think speeds the biggest commodity in the world hmm, I think it's the most underrated yeah, and then you know it works in negotiation, it works with food, it just works with everything, yeah so I've got two more questions for you.
Speaker 1:Um, tell me your most memorable, interesting or potentially intriguing sale that you've ever done, something that really sticks in your mind literally just received a text from one of my favorite favorite vendors.
Speaker 2:um, I was awarded to sell one of the most iconic properties in Manly and by far that was the most memorable and always will be. It was a property that I sold it was about a year and a half ago now in Manly and took out the suburb record per square metre in an area that I now sell in a lot but at the time hadn't sold a house there prior to that and managed to take out the suburb record at auction.
Speaker 1:Is this the one behind the surf club? It is there, you go $21 million, wasn't it $21.5 million? There you go, Almost got it right.
Speaker 2:Yeah for a 400-square-metre property that was almost a knockdown. So by far that was the most memorable. And there were just so many reasons because every agent in the area, I guess, thought they were going to get the listing and the listing. I never in a million years thought that I would get that listing. But I had looked after this client many years ago when she had a very old, dilapidated two-bedroom apartment to sell in Redmond Road, dy and she never forgot it. Fantastic, she never forgot how I'd looked after her.
Speaker 1:Do you know what? You've just struck a chord there, because people don't remember necessarily your name, but they remember how you made them feel A hundred percent. Talk about authenticity. If you remember that I'm always using that quote. That's a great line, isn't it? It's true, though, but it's true, it is absolutely true. So you win business.
Speaker 2:And there's no dollar value that you can put on that?
Speaker 1:No, no.
Speaker 2:There's absolutely no dollar value.
Speaker 1:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I'm always saying, when you look after people. That is the result.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:When you're not driven by anything else but looking after people.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and they will never forget how you make them feel. What about you, mark? What's the most memorable sale?
Speaker 3:Oh, it sounds really bad. I don't even want to talk about it. I had a guy that had one leg and had a great relationship with him and his wife was a champion and they said, look, just get me and get us a place, but just make sure it's two-story. It's not two-story because I've got one leg.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:I sold him a two-story property because I've got one leg and I sold him a two-story property. So when I told them, I rang them up and said hey, you know it's got something great. Now I know that you've said you don't want something that's two-story, but you've got to come and have a look and they bought it.
Speaker 1:And did they put a lift in or something, or an escalator?
Speaker 3:No, he's just going to hop up and steal it. He was a younger guy, but I remember at the office at the time. Everyone in the office was just going like how do you sell something?
Speaker 1:That's so funny, that's hilarious so.
Speaker 3:I look at it as if it was a great relationship. They wanted it, they bought it, they loved it. But I thought that salesmanship side- where it was just great value and I knew everything else that they wanted. But, yeah, I probably shouldn't tell that story.
Speaker 1:That's great. I love it, love the authenticity. Tell me the last thing. Tell me a property tip, the best property tip you'd like to share with our audience? Just one each, just a quick tip.
Speaker 2:Best property tip is you've got to. You do need to trust the real estate agent. I know we just talked about that a moment ago. You know we're here as experts, much like when you go to a doctor and you're asking them for the expert advice. If you sit there, you listen to the doctor, you go away and you don't follow what the doctor said, don't expect a great outcome. And it's the same with real estate agents, you know. And also we're really not all the same and I sometimes, when I'm sitting in a listing presentation, they're like oh, you know, but I think you're all the same.
Speaker 2:We're really not we all bring very, very different qualities to the table.
Speaker 3:You all think about your school teachers. They're all the same. No, definitely not Definitely not. Definitely not yeah.
Speaker 3:And Mark any final tips from you. I think you can never afford to buy really, but buy and buy regular. So, and you know, I just think, stay consistent with it, so you will get comfortable and just keep pushing yourself, you know to, and I think you can have everything else. You know, you can still do your holidays, you can still do what you need to do. It still sort of happens, but I think it just makes for a much more comfortable life in the second half of your life.
Speaker 2:You know, if you can, you know, buy and also the first property is honestly the hardest you know it really is. Once you've gotten over that. I know we've got Billy, a young guy who works in here and he bought his first property and he's like I don't know how I'm going to afford these mortgage repayments. They've just gone up by three times. But you know what you push through it and you do and you're resilient and you work it out and you just, you know, you just make stuff work and then the ones after that seem to be a little bit easier. But property has always been very, very kind to people, that's for sure.
Speaker 1:Well, Mark Novak, Lisa Novak, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and tips today. It's been such a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Absolute pleasure. Thanks for having us. You're a legend. Thanks, mate.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being with us on another Property Buyer Podcast. If you have a question you'd like to ask, please click on the speak pipe link and we'll answer this during the next episode. If you're looking to buy a residential or commercial property in the near future and would like to get the added advantage of having a buyer's advocate on your side, then please reach out to my team today and send us your inquiry and we'd be delighted to help. Please visit our website at propertybuyercomau where you can stay updated with all my latest market updates, weekly blogs and live suburb profiles to help you make better property decisions. We look forward to connecting with you again on the next Property Buyer Podcast.