Thanks for the chat this morning Sarah. Reservoir, Bundoora and the north east are our home patch: we live here, we've bought, renovated and sold here, and it's where most of our work sits. Here's what we heard, how we'd run your search, and what you get back, so you and your husband can talk it through over the weekend.
A quick recap of our call this morning: where you're at, what you're after, and where we'll look.
You sold the Reservoir unit in June, settled in August, and you've been at your dad's for five weeks. Your son starts school next year, so where you buy decides where he goes. Three things stood out.
The selling agent called $950k as a stop price. It went $20k past that, and past the number you'd agreed on beforehand.
Nearby sales were in the high $800s. The room got emotional and it went $100k over what the comps said.
The agent told you it would go over $1M, so you didn't look. It sold for $950k, inside your budget.
The common thread: every agent you've dealt with works for the vendor. Their job is to build competition, and they did. You need someone in your corner who knows what a house is actually worth and holds the line when the room heats up.
| Item | What you told us | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| The money | ||
| Budget | Up to $1M: $950k preapproval with Bank of Melbourne, plus a $50k gift | Hard limit |
| Two ways in | Move in ready up to $1M, or around $850k with $100k kept for cosmetic work (10% deposit with the LMI waiver) | Both work |
| Settlement | 30 days, finance ready to go | Our lever |
| The house | ||
| Bedrooms | 3 | Must have |
| Bathrooms | 2 is ideal. 1 is fine if the toilet is separate | Must have |
| Living | Room for a proper dining table, ideally open plan with the kitchen | Must have |
| Kitchen | Slightly dated is ok if it's functional with a decent stove | Flexible |
| Wardrobes | Missing robes are fixable, not a deal breaker | Flexible |
| The block | ||
| Land | Around 500m2 | Must have |
| Backyard | Green space with trees for the boys. A concrete courtyard doesn't cut it | Must have |
| Street | Quiet or a light through street. Not a main road | Must have |
| The work | ||
| Cosmetic | Paint, carpet, robes. Ideally done before you move in | Happy to do |
| Bathrooms | Ok to update later if there are two of them | Happy to do |
| Structural | Knocking out walls, full kitchen or bathroom guts, cladding with asbestos risk | Avoid |
| Converted garages | A garage turned bedroom you walk outside to reach still counts as a garage | Avoid |
We lived in Reservoir for five years and bought and sold there three times, and we're based in Greensborough now. The selling agents in these pockets know us, which is why the off market calls come our way. We'll work your first choices hard and bring you anything good just outside them.
| Area | The pocket | Schools in play | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reservoir | The Don St side, around Beat Cafe. Where your community already is | Reservoir Views | First choice |
| Bundoora | The Bundoora Primary side, and the other side of Grimshaw St. Not the Norris Bank side | Bundoora Primary, Watsonia North | First choice |
| Watsonia | Only if the spot is right. Some parts push the budget | Watsonia North | Second look |
| Macleod | A nice area you're less familiar with. We'll show you around it | To confirm | Second look |
| Greensborough | If the street is right. Yes, we're biased, we live here | To confirm | Second look |
You want a school with a decent intake, not a tiny one. We'll check the zone for every house before you inspect, so you're never falling for a house on the wrong side of a boundary.
Everything from here is how we get you in by Christmas: what you get back, how we run it, what we've already done in your patch, the timeline, and the fee.
Three things decide whether this works for you. Here's each one, worked on your numbers and kept conservative.
You've been actively looking since the second week of July. That's 12 weeks already.
Going it alone uses 3 to 6 months from preapproval, the top of that range given you've been outbid twice. Buyers in the active offer and auction phase now average 3.2 months. Timings indicative.
10 fewer weeks of searching, at 7 to 10 hours a week.
Our average under asking or budget, last four buys.
Of what we buy never hits the portals.
About 3x the fee back on price alone. Our fee is around 1.5% of your budget, and our average result covers it three times over before you count the time and the off market access. Across the whole engagement our clients typically see 4x to 12x. For scale, the Bundoora house ran $20k past the agent's own stop price.
We lock in the brief, the streets, the school zones and your two paths.
About half of what we buy is off market. We work the phones with agents across your patch, and move early on anything online.
We walk every house and tell you if it needs a building inspection or if it's a no. No wasted money on reports.
Pre auction offers first. At auction we bid to a hard limit. Agents never learn your budget.
Contract, finance, settlement and the reno plan. We stay on until you're in and after.
We have a renovation background. We can tell you what to do and what to leave on a walkthrough, consult by the hour, or manage the whole cosmetic job so it's done before you move in.
We'll look at as many as it takes. Anything already in our pipeline that fits your brief comes to you first.
| Suburb | What we did | Our result |
|---|---|---|
| Reservoir | Online auction purchase | Set and forget, bought in 16 days |
| Reservoir | Pre market purchase, then full renovation | Bought pre auction, full reno delivered |
| Reservoir | Auction purchase, renovation and sale | $300k+ uplift |
| Reservoir | Auction purchase, renovation and sale | Full transformation |
| Greensborough | Off market purchase and renovation | Bought off market, reno underway |
| Mill Park | Auction purchase | $70k under budget |
| Lalor | Private negotiation | $60k under asking |
| Oak Park | Pre auction purchase | $50k under the advertised range |
| Yallambie | Auction purchase | +9.0%, $128k gain |
| Preston | Off market purchase | +11.4%, $130k gain |
| Preston | Vendors advocacy | Sold above the quoted range |
| Thomastown | Renovation and vendors advocacy | $78.5k above the suburb median |
All results are d36 Property client work, from our portfolio at d36property.com.au. Oak Park is a recent purchase not yet on the site. Percentage and dollar gains are value growth since purchase. Past results don't guarantee future outcomes.
We buy in 30 days on average, sometimes inside a week. Add a 30 day settlement and you have the keys in early December, with room to spare before Christmas.
Agreement signed, retainer in, brief locked. We call back the agents whose off markets we've already passed on that fit you.
Off market and online stock assessed against your brief. You only see the ones worth your Saturday.
Pre auction offer or auction win, inside your limit.
30 day settlement. School sorted for next year, and Christmas in your own place.
Indicative timeline. It depends on what comes up and when we start.
Talk it through with your husband, and see how the weekend's auctions land.
Let us know either way. I'll check in after the weekend.
Buyers agency agreement, signed online.
$5,000 plus GST invoice.
We start the same day. Monday, or tomorrow if you need.