When you clear out the cupboard of rubbish at the weekend and stick a couple of items on Trade me you cannot help but tell your friends about the fun of the auction and the astounding price you got when someone got carried away online and bought that old skateboard.
However do any of us share the selling price of our house with our friends and colleagues?
It strikes me we consider property in the same basket as salary and Lotto winnings – we do not want to share this information – why is that?
Is it the scale of the financial transaction or is it the statement it makes about our approach to material things?
This subject was brought to my attention over the weekend when a friend of mine shared with me their frustration and annoyance that a local agent who had sold them the house used the image of the property and the price they paid in an advert showcasing the agent’s skills and capability in selling real estate.
The price paid for property is available in public record through title information and in paid for reports from Zoodle and QV. However many real estate agents are sharing local sales information with clients in a more open fashion these days. This information is being used in a more public arena (press adverts / leaflets / opne home information) where in the past it would have been restricted to one-on-one meetings with prospective vendors who seek to have an agent provide an appraisal for a property.
In other countries the sale price is far more public. Take the US for example – Zillow provides an incredibly rich experience for real estate searching – take this single family home for example for sale in Cary, North Carolina. Not only does it show the asking price, it has the price it last sold for, a recent market valuation and also the owners estimated valuation based on recent enhancements. All the information is free of charge.
In the UK the Zoopla property website provides the details of local sales by address as well as estimated valuation for example for this 2 bedroom house near Reading.
In Australia the results of weekend auctions are published the day after the sale – these latest statistics from Melbourne yesterday courtesy of Realestateview.
So I would be interested to hear your thoughts and comments on this issue which I am sure will have as many supporters as detractors!
In a market where buyers and vendors are often confused about listing prices/selling prices etc I think we owe it to them to educate them with timely and accurate figures to form solid buying decisions.
Full Disclosure is the only way to help current vendors and buyers alike make educated decisions…
What would CMA’s look like without these figures?
I think it is a good thing for it to be freely available, like the CV is. Will it bring price down or push it up?
Good on you stirring the pot again Alistair. I know this issue gets up the nose of many a RE industry stalwart. My perception is that the controllers of this industry will be the detractors you refer to above.
My opinion is that the common practise of keeping sale prices under wraps is well past its use by date. As you have stated, consumers overseas have many free sources they can turn to.
If the RE industry as a whole thinks that it should control the supply of and “own” sale price information, then the industry doesn’t understand the concept of “adding value”. That would be sad.
Would Google keep information from their customers? No. They would provide the free info, then make even more money by putting ads in next to the info.
The RE Industry could take this concept to another level and be so open and free with sale price info that consumers would think “Wow, what an open, giving, caring, industry.” Perhaps it could be a catalyst for some much needed change in thinking as we edge closer to the new RE Agent’s Act.
Now there’s a thought!
It can sometimes be hard to balance a home sellers privacy with the desire for information from the rest of the community. If you sell your home through an agent, you may be signing over the right to privacy when you sign an agency listing agreement. My company listing contract has a clause (that has been in the agency agreement for more than 10 years) that allows the agency to use the sale details for promotion. Even though this is so, we tailor our approach depending on the seller. There have been times where a consultant has asked the team to be circumspect in passing on sale details of a particular property in respect for an owner who has sold and is a very private person, or who has sold under difficult circumstances etc.
This flow of information is critical to an informed and realistic view of the market. Remember that when you as a potential homeowner ask an agent for a price appraisal, you are relying on the sale details of others to get an accurate market feel for your home. Valuers and banks also you this sale data also.
No sale details, no idea of what your home is worth.
Harcourts have a website that you can sign up for and once logged on, it will give you information on sale prices for a large range of properties sold in past 12 odd months.
If the property was sold by Harcourts, you will get the link to their webpage. If by another agent, then just price and address.
See link
http://selling.harcourts.co.nz/Default.aspx?m=/content/main/SearchProperties.ascx
So far I have had no spam or emails from Harcourts in 2 years.
1. House prices are not and ought not to be confidential
2. However,no agency or individual ought to be able to publicise the price of a house without the express approval of the vendor and/or the purchaser.This is because although the information isn’t confidential in a legal sense, it is personal.
3. While some people may not mind in the least having the price of their house sale or purchase widely distributed, others may, for a variety of reasons, may not want this.At present real estate companies don’t bother to check – they just publish the information – as widely as possible – for their own commercial purposes.
4. At present most vendors sign a document allowing the sale of their pty to be used for marketing purposes (methods and media usually unspecified). Purchasers, however, do not – and yet they may have their house price broadcast to literally thousands of people.
5. It’s a two-edged sword: when looking to buy a pty it’s very helpful to get eg email newsletters from agents with sale prices of recent pties. This helps us make the big decisions that buying and selling involve.
6. But there is a difference between the two.The sale price of a property more or less solely reflects the market ie what it is prepared to pay for your house, while the purchase price is seen more as a reflection of the purchaser’s financial status – perceived or real.
7. Therein lies the rub and that’s one of several reasons why I believe the method and media used for publicising a house sale price ought to be agreed by both the vendor and the purchaser.
Mattie
Thanks for your comments – valuable to have a perspective of a property owner/buyer/seller.
I think the point you raise regarding the lack of “say” on the part of the purchaser is valid – the real estate profession is very centric to the role they play on behalf of the seller – the classic vendor’s agent. Equally I see the point of the price paid by a buyer is or at least could be construed to be a reflection of financial status.
When talking about the publication of sales data, we can’t forget that almost all sales made by an agent in NZ are passed on to the Real Estate Institue which are then collated and published. It is a bit rich for agents to go on about not passing on sales details, but then to be doing just that through the process of data gathering by REINZ.
I agree with Mattie on the purchase price being a reflection of a buyer’s financial status. But isn’t that a part of why we buy homes in the first place, along with other big ticket items like cars?
The house we buy IS a reflection of ourselves in terms of location, size, style, value etc. We can’t get past this regardless of whether actual prices paid are publicized or not.
I guess, from an agents point of view, publishing the price is not about vendor or about seller, it is about the house and the location. Homes are our stock in trade and recent sales are a critical part of our business.
In my office, we have had many discussions about the way we use house sale information in advertising material and we have moved over the last five years to talk about sale prices in comparison with GV (eg house X sold $20k over GV) or to talk about sales figures but not mention addresses in the advertising. In this way, we are trying to balance the privacy of the seller and buyer with the public’s desire to know.
An interesting spin on this whole topic, and one that to me is at odds with the trend toward more openness and transperancy is the REINZ’s sale and purchase agreement for Tenders.
In the fine print, there are major restrictions as to what information can be passed on. To quote the Sale of Real Estate by Tender:-
2.3 All tenders, including the identity of the tenderer, will be kept confidential by the agent, who will not divulge to any other tenderer OR THIRD PARTY any details of any successful tender, save that statistical data may be provided to the Real Estate Institute of NZ.”
Of course the new purchaser’s name, eventually gets rejoined to the details of the sale using sources like LINZ and the REINZ database, so interested parties can get hold of the info after a short period of time anyway. This to me defeats the purpose of all the cloak and dagger stuff that agents are bound to in the S and P Tender document.
I live in the US and purchased our last 2 homes well informed by sites like Zillow. We knew more about property values and past sales in the area than the real estate agents did.
Now trying to buy a little piece of New Zealand to come home to one day, I wish there was a Zillow.com equivalent. It would be soo much easier.
Karen
I have to agree with you that Zillow is an incredibly comprehensive online service of property. In NZ we have to adapt to the accessibility of information. We have built the Zoodle website with the express intention of creating a facility for property buyers, owners and sellers to be better informed about properties and communities. The valuations and sales history data is no free but as much other data as we have been able to access and aggregate is there for all.
What is New Zealand legal position as to whether one can choose to keep the price private or not? Can someone comment on it please?
Karunanidhi
I am not a lawyer and therefore cannot provide a legal answer. However I would offer this perspective – land related transactions in NZ (which encompass all property sales) are registered and recorded as a matter of public record with the Land Transfer Authority and therefore are public – the issue is the ease of access to that data.