Luxury Real Estate

By Michael Marquette
From his blog: Luxury Homes Fail to Sell at Auction

It has always astonished me how many real estate agents advise everyone they meet to auction their home home. In Regional cities like Newcastle this happens all too often with the inevitable result of the property passing in, and in most cases not even receiving one bid from a potential buyer.

The process is horrendous for vendors who quite often have their hopes set high only to have them come crashing down on auction day. Potential purchasers use the fact that the property passed in to show that there is little if any interest in the home and accordingly offer much less for the property or just wait for the price to continue falling in the hope of snapping it up for a bargain price.

This is even truer when looking at luxury homes in sort after suburbs in Newcastle like The Hill, Bar Beach and Merewether. Twenty-seven homes were put to auction in the Hunter yesterday with only eight selling, for a clearance rate of just 30 percent. Even more interesting is that the highest price paid for a property sold at auction yesterday was just $452,000!

It is more important than ever to choose an agent with the experience, qualifications and knowledge of the luxury market when selling your home. The one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn’t work when selling luxury properties and is even more important when selling property in Regional cities.


Editor’s Note:
Michael Marquette is the co-Founder and Director of Marquette Turner Luxury Homes in East Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded on Australia Day 2007 by Marquette and Simon Turner, Marquette Turner is a property consultancy company covering the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. Marquette has a background in medicine and a large retail and wholesale business. Very interesting. An inexperienced real-estate agent might not know the best way to sell a home in the current market, so it’s important to choose wisely. Otherwise, buyers might not bother to pay attention to sellers’ efforts. The photo above is from www.flickr.com/photos/rickmccharles/2269842297 and it is the copyright of Rick McCharles.

By Michael Marquette

From his blog: Australian Auction Clearance Rates Crash!

Auction Clearance rates for the week ending July 27, 2008 indicate a property market in crisis. Sydney’s Clearance rate of just 36.5 percent is indicative of the disparity between vendors and buyers, with some real-estate agents caught in the middle.

Luxury real estate agents’ skills in both marketing and negotiating homes are being put to the test and many are being found short. Agents with reputations for overpricing properties (the practice of overpricing is used by some agents to win listings) are struggling to match the prices offered by buyers with the price expectations of vendors. Agents with the ability to communicate the best strategy at the time of listing are best placed to negotiate the highest price for vendors in the current market – well before a property is seen to become “stale.”

Getting the right agent is the key to successfully selling your home. Given that the total number of sales is down and the list of unsold properties is increasing, it is more important than ever to ensure that your luxury home is in safe hands. Given that spring, and the usual seasonal increase in the number of listings, is beckoning I stress the importance of making the right decisions the first time!



Editor’s Note:
Michael Marquette is the co-Founder and Director of Marquette Turner Luxury Homes in East Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded on Australia Day 2007 by Marquette and Simon Turner, Marquette Turner is a property consultancy company covering the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria. Marquette has a background in medicine and a large retail and wholesale business. Some markets are facing tough times, and it’s good to be aware of potential issues as well as opportunities. The photo of the crashing wave is from www.flickr.com/photos/victorgeere/24539591 and it is the copyright of Victor Geere.

By Brian Langhorst

Did you know that we track the number of listings that you upload that do not have addresses? We are undertaking a membership-wide commitment to improve the quality of the data/listings that are on LuxuryRealEstate.com.

This is a very exciting and strong opportunity for all of us. When you enter your listings with accurate information it helps us to provide tools and accurate search results for your and our end customers – the buyer! So please enter all the information you have on to all of your listing on LuxuryRealEstate.com!

Please contact me to speak more about your listings and how to get the most out of your membership with us. Email me at blanghorst at LuxuryRealEstate.com.


Editor’s Note:
Brian Langhorst is LuxuryRealEstate.com’s Membership Manager. He meets members’ unique needs through the dynamic services LuxuryRealEstate.com provides. We at LuxuryRealEstate.com are committed to providing excellent service to brokers around the world and to buyers and sellers, as well. Be sure to take the time to contact Brian to find out more about how you can make your listings more effective on our Web site.

By Brian Langhorst

Every year more and more young athletes are getting very large signing bonuses and contracts right out of high school and college. These young men are usually looking at buying two things quickly: real estate and automobiles. Are you reaching out to these up-and-coming luxury buyers and sellers?

Most athletes move several times during their careers. I cannot help but think that the referral opportunities for qualified real-estate agents are rather large. These athletes/real-estate investors can provide you with a large pipeline of referrals and business as their peer and teammate network is large and always growing with trades and acquisitions.

As a network with representation in every major market, Who’s Who in Luxury Real Estate and LuxuryRealEstate.com can be an excellent resource for you to use for such clients.


Editor’s Note:
Brian Langhorst is LuxuryRealEstate.com’s Membership Manager. He meets members’ unique needs through the dynamic services LuxuryRealEstate.com provides. This is definitely a great market to go after, since professional athletes are certainly wealthy, affluent and looking for the finer things in life.

By Kimberly Fulwyler

With the public perception that the real-estate market is in a downward spiral, homeowners, and some real-estate agents, are relying on divine intervention to sell their home. People are buying St. Joseph statues all across the country, so that St. Joseph, the Patron saint of home life, can help them sell their homes. According to the legend, you bury the St. Joseph statue in your yard, and within a short period of time your home miraculously sells. The myth varies as to where and how you bury St. Joseph. Some people say you bury him next to the For Sale sign while others insist that you must bury him upside down. Whether this urban legend is true or not, I think that it at least illustrates that most people have faith that something – miraculous or otherwise – will turn the market around in their favor.

Comments? Contact me at kfulwyler@luxuryrealestate.com.


Editor’s Note:
Let’s hear a nice round of applause for Kimberly Fulwyler for kicking off our new LuxuryRealEstate.com Blog with this fun blog entry! Kimberly is an Account Manager, so she provides customer service and marketing materials to a variety of LuxuryRealEstate.com members. I can’t wait to see more great work from Kimberly and others, as well.

By Robert Lockard

Similar to yesterday’s post, I would like to focus on some issues that I hope will show that current real-estate worries shouldn’t frighten buyers, sellers and agents too much. It seems like everything is going wrong right now because that is what we have been hearing over and over in the media. However, according to the RISMedia article entitled “Give Your Clients the Real Facts,” the National Association of REALTORS® is beginning a bold campaign to stem the tide of bad publicity with ads and a new Web site: www.housingmarketfacts.com. Basically, they stress the fact that real estate, and especially luxury real estate, has always been a good investment.

I definitely like this development because it’s good to alleviate some of the fears being spread in real-estate markets around the country. Other bloggers have pointed out to me that real estate is driven by emotions as well as numbers, so simply saying that everything is okay and that the numbers show growth isn’t enough to turn the tide against negativity. But it’s a good start. I hope that people will calm down soon and start focusing on solutions to the real and perceived problems plaguing many real-estate markets. I hope I can be more positive and share some solutions instead of just focusing on problems, as well!


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more.

By Robert Lockard

“The drop in house prices is a good thing.” So says a recent editorial, entitled “Relief for home buyers,” in The Seattle Times. Exactly. Thank you, Seattle Times editors, for succinctly stating a fact that cuts to the heart of this matter. If prices are always rising, then that is certainly not a good thing for buyers, who have to pay more for the same home. Trends that are good for sellers will not be so good for buyers, and vice versa. Prices have been reaching all-time highs in the past few years, so the price dip that is occurring in several markets is by no means a catastrophe. In fact, it is probably a good thing since it will allow buyers, seeking first homes or luxury homes, to receive more property for their money.

This editorial reminds us of an important fact that is sometimes lost in these endless debates of dollars and deals. The truth is that the housing market primarily exists to provide houses to individuals and families, not to give them money. Certainly, there are numerous advantages to homeownership, including the personal equity and stability they can offer over the long term. But that is not what houses are designed to do. Prices have historically always risen on properties across the United States, but that doesn’t mean that they can never fall in the short term. If people would think of their homes as where they live first, and an investment second, a lot of unforeseen troubles probably would have been averted.


Editor’s Note:
Robert Lockard is the Public Relations & Media Specialist with LuxuryRealEstate.com. I am Robert. I create all of Luxury Real Estate’s newsletters, write the editorials in LuxuryRealEstate.com Magazine and much more. Let me know your thoughts on this topic.