This week the boys are joined on the Property Pod by Sam Spilsbury & Sally Shaw of BUYERS AGENTS TASMANIA, a launceston based Property Advocacy business offering a state wide service. From local buyers to interstate sea changers and investors, they are here to assist you get the very best outcome by offering unparalleled service and experience.

For more information head over to batas.com.au

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Aaron Horne  0:34  

Alright guys, welcome back to The Property Pod- your accessible and easy to listen to way into the property market. I'm your host Aaron Horne, and I'm joined by 4one4 property co real estate agents, Patrick Berry and john McGregor.

Patrick Berry  0:47  

how's it going? Everyone?

Aaron Horne  0:48  

Yeah, very good. Very good. We've got another cracking day here in in Hobart. The Mercury is going to hit about 28 degrees. 

Patrick Berry  0:55  

I know it is. And I thought our studio is gonna be a sweatbox this morning.

Aaron Horne  0:57  

Yeah, we're doing all right so far. So hopefully we can get through today's episode without too much without too much sweat. And yeah, we have a nice calm episode. 

John McGregor  1:06  

Oh, that sounds great.

Aaron Horne  1:07  

I know last week, we said we missed out on Pat being here. We spoke with Christie and Aaron that was Yeah, yeah a Good. Listen. Yep, had some really good feedback. Hopefully some people have reached out to the Let's talk.gov through GCC-anyone that knows what I'm talking about.

John McGregor  1:20  

Yeah. It would have gone to the other side that

they've still got time to do isn't it? Because at the end of the month when...

Aaron Horne  1:26  

yes 30th Yeah, if you want to sneak in and have something to say about the greater glenorchy plan before the talking points finish that says 30th Yeah, cool. I mentioned on last week's show that would be just the three of us in the studio today. But Pat has found us a guest

Patrick Berry  1:42  

I sure have good old Instagram is come good for me again.

Patrick Berry  1:57  

We’ve got Sally & Sam, some buyer's agents in Launceston. So yeah, right. Yeah, we're gonna have a chat about the north of the state and see what things are happening up there.

John McGregor  2:05  

That's cool. Like, shouldn't it be good to have a couple of experts focused on North Launceston is selling just as intently as fast as the properties in Hobart?

Aaron Horne  2:11  

Yeah, well, our mate Simon Pressley from up in Brisbane. He's always touting launceston as a really good investment space. So it'd be really interesting to kind of talk to Sally and Sam of buyer's agents Tasmania and see what he's talking about. It's right. Yes. other than going for the Brisbane Lions. He's normally pretty spot on.

John McGregor  2:28  

Yeah.

Aaron Horne  2:30  

Now look, let's jump to those guys.Then we'll see how we go.

ADVERT  2:37  

4one4 Property Co. 

All types of property for all types of people. 

At 4one4 property Co. We believe the property is for everyone. 

White Collar, blue collar, no collar, dog collar. 

Whoever you are, we will find the property for you. 

Contact 4one4 property Co at www.4one4.com.au

Aaron Horne  3:01  

Alright guys, that's right. We'll be here with our guests. today. We've got Sally and Sam from buyer's agents Tasmania living kind enough to give us some of their time this morning. So welcome to the show, Sally and Sam,

Sally & Sam  3:11  

thank you for having us excited to be here.

Aaron Horne  3:13  

Not a problem. It's great to actually get you guys on the mic and speak to someone in our home state of Tasmania. That's Yeah, living in another area.

Sally & Sam  3:22  

Yeah, we're born and bred launcestonians; Launceston is crazy at the moment, crazy. Gosh, everyone wants to buy a little slice of Tasmania. I think that statewide, not just lovely launie, but people are very excited for our hometown, which is great for us and great for the industry 

John McGregor  3:44  

Have you found that the conversations around Launceston have changed? 

I mean, I remember, we're only this story came up yesterday, were you 1015 years ago, you'd mentioned you're from Tasmania, and everyone would just, you know, comment in the fact they got two heads, but you'd say the same you say from tazzy now, and they got really tazzy I've always wanted to go there. You know, it's like, so if you find that that story is similar to Launceston as well,

Sally & Sam  4:08  

I think so I had a call. Yes, actually, from a family meeting down and I just can't wait. They've never been here. But here. It's great and can't wait to move here. And so I think it's really changed from nscd briefings and they want to move to like the northwest coast. And they can't wait.

John McGregor  4:24  

Yeah, right. That didn't give you any reason rhyme or reason why they're just excited.

Oh, yeah. Excited work is driven them down as well. But I think it's crazy to think people would laugh at us if we would say we're from Tasmania, when we used to go into state where now they can't wait to come down here and they want to leave here. Never seen it before. Yeah, yes.

Patrick Berry  4:41  

So we've been talking to a lot more buyers on a daily basis. Are you finding that since COVID started and obviously the way works changing a lot more people able to work remotely that that's been able to shift people to move to the state.

Sally & Sam  4:54  

Absolutely. And I think also our purchase prices here. It's yourself horrible to to buy something The Tasmanian market, which is helping and our border controls made us quite a safe place to be during COVID, which I think all of those factors combined. And who wouldn't want to live here? Of course, all of those things have just made us really interesting to people, which is great.

Aaron Horne  5:17  

So we've got to jump straight into the real estate side of things. But can we take a quick step back and just kind of get your story find out about how you guys got into the industry? What kind of beat you with the real estate and buyer's agents kind of, I can't think of the word understand

John McGregor  5:30  

what what how did you get the buyer's agents bug?

Aaron Horne  5:32  

Yeah, that's good. Yeah.

Sally & Sam  5:34  

So I've been a property manager in Launceston and in the real estate industry for 16 years. Well, I've worked in industry for 16 years. So I've always been in property management. And that's how I kind of kind of fell into the industry, really a perception and work my way up. So I've probably worked as a property manager for five years now. And then we kind of fell into it, we were given an opportunity to purchase buy agents from Alex Robinson, and earlier in the year, so we just feel like it kind of lined up with what we're already doing. And we're already helping people purchase investment properties. It's our call. And so that's kind of count happened, really. And we've just taken off with it. Cool. So

Patrick Berry  6:16  

you swapped from property management across to the sales side of things.

Sally & Sam  6:20  

Yes. Yep. So both the property managers in our Launceston area and our clients, if in within our portfolio of being property managers, if they wanted to sell their properties, we usually knew other clients already in our portfolios that wanted to buy so we were already unofficially helping people. And and then when the opportunity arose from Alex to purchase five agents from him in the middle of COVID, we thought we were quite brave. Why Sure, we'll buy another business.

Aaron Horne  6:50  

Oh, here we go. So you guys have bought into the business journal in 2020. In this kind of flux state of what's happening with the world,

Unknown Speaker  6:58  

shorty? Oh,

Aaron Horne  7:01  

yeah, cool. I love that. That's really exciting

Sally & Sam  7:03  

about the position, if we didn't purchase it, he didn't really know what he's gonna do with it. And we really liked the name. So yeah, we thought we could do it. But we liked the name, too, you know, it kind of attracts a lot of people. So that's kind of where we are. Yeah,

Patrick Berry  7:17  

I'm actually thought about it. But I can understand how moving from property management across to a buyer's agent role actually works really well. I'm thinking about the roles that our property managers do on a daily basis, the follow up the communication between clients and ensuring the tasks get completed, I can really see how that would sort of gel really nicely when working with buyers, like me, and john has sales consultants selling properties for vendors, and the buyers, we tootin. Because we talked to so many of them, we do tend to forget about them after a while not intentionally. It's just the volume that we're working with. And we're more geared to the vendor, but I can I can definitely see how property manager could take on a buyer's agent role and be really successful at it.

Sally & Sam  7:56  

Absolutely. I think for us, it's natural to be able to help people, especially in our local area, when they're asking for yields, and they want to know what these property is going to rent for. And it's natural for us to be able to have those discussions. So it's been a really nice way to fit it alongside what we do.

Aaron Horne  8:13  

And it's kind of like, as you said before levelling up like you kind of started at like, I'm a receptionist, I'm kind of getting my feet wet in the industry. And they're like, Oh, well now I've kind of become this property manager now. Oh, now we run our own business as buyer's agents. And we've got all this wealth of knowledge that we've had in the past. I love it. I think it's really clever enough to get a name, which works really well with SEO.

Patrick Berry  8:33  

Yeah, just Google.

Aaron Horne  8:37  

It find the girls Pat.

Patrick Berry  8:39  

I think you guys follow me on Instagram. That way.

Aaron Horne  8:45  

Can you guys give us an idea of what's happening up in Launceston? Yeah, I guess you're right in the middle of the state. I've noticed online that it's kind of states that you guys work across the whole state. So you kind of centralised, you know, a really, really good position.

Sally & Sam  8:56  

Absolutely. I think we are in such a fortunate position. It's easy for us to get all of the places we never usually work in with high numbers of clients and Sam and I in our personal life. We also like to travel with each other. You know, if we spend enough time we've been together already, on Saturday just gone actually we're in St. Helens bidding at an auction for someone. So this role for us. It's really interesting that we can be seeing parts of tazzy being interested in real estate, helping people and all the fun things together. So yeah, the market definitely we're finding more inquiry for Launceston at the moment. And whether that's because we're based in Launceston although people are ideally you know, searching for buyer's agents Tasmania, I think the returns at the moment for investors are really impressive for Launceston so we haven't had to do a ridiculous amount of statewide travel. And we used to have our trips and we purchased in Burnie recently so that was a bit of both spectrums.

Aaron Horne  9:56  

Yeah, so I guess kind of finding the properties and reaching out and Getting the wealth of knowledge across the whole state is kind of the relationships you've built previously through your property management skills. And now you're kind of being like is we're doing a little bit more about Bernie, we know a little bit about St. Helens as you were there. You guys weren't beating like the guy did on the block the other night where you with the crazy numbers to tap into?

Unknown Speaker  10:19  

Sorry about that? No, we read

Unknown Speaker  10:21  

sadly.

Sally & Sam  10:26  

It was a very slow auction. blocks of land actually. And very early on, it got to $100 increments, probably $20,000 away from the purchase price of meat was very slow. When it was. Yeah, it was a interesting time.

John McGregor  10:46  

One of the biggest things, I suppose there's a bit of frustration for buyers locally, we're seeing is just the level of competition in the marketplace. Obviously, you know, lots of people come to the booth for inspections. We're seeing a lot of inquiry coming in. What's it like, from your perspective, where you're Are you still dealing with that level of competition with the properties you're purchasing? Yeah, it

Sally & Sam  11:05  

has been quite competitive for us, especially people coming in with cash to be able to buy something, I think we're that's how we're losing a lot of ours. Now clients do have to get financed, which makes things difficult, but understandable. We try and whenever we have a client come and speak to us, we get their brief and we send it to all our people in our circle that know that want to help us yeah, especially if it's Launceston we do have quite a good relationship with a lot of agents. So if we can try and get in there before the first open home or try and get something off market, which is quite limited, but there are a few there. That's how we're helping a lot of our clients at the moment. So I will say something going home on Saturday, we'll call that agent and big. Yeah, and then we put the offer in. Yeah, cool. Well,

Aaron Horne  11:55  

and what type of people have you found have been taking up your services or getting first time buyers investors kind of what

Sally & Sam  12:02  

either investors or people moving down, or people that keep missing out. So people that might be moving down for work? And I keep just doing sign on saying, but just keep missing out with their offers? So we've had a couple of days that we've been able to help. But you're mainly investors at the moment? Oh, yeah. People moving down?

John McGregor  12:22  

I guess. Cuz Have you? Have you found as well. Way obviously people in Australia are normally used to thinking that they would pay an agent to help them find a property. Is that? Do you actually get many first time buyer inquiries in that sense? Or do they you know, talk about your services, or they just don't even think about it.

Sally & Sam  12:40  

I don't think they think about it. And I don't think a lot of people know that we're here one thing, and really know what we're here to help them with. So if that's kind of one thing we're working on at the moment is trying to get our name out there more. So people know that we're here and what we're going to do to be able to help them right. But once we can get someone on the phone and we explain how we would assist them, you know, we can we get 80% of people across the line to sign up with us.

Aaron Horne  13:04  

Yeah, sure. Sure. As as the guy on the other side of the desk that just does all the media for these guys and not knowing anything about real estate prior to having another buyer's agent on the show before I had no idea what it was I was literally blown away that the concept of having someone be in your corner and go and do the searching for you. I just thought that was completely foreign. But now after speaking to two other buyer's agents previously on the show, it just seems like a no brainer that like if you if you're busy, or you're kind of trying to buy out of area like someone moving from the mainland, you want to move to Hobart, you want to move to Launceston you want to move anywhere in Tasmania? Why wouldn't you use an expert or someone like yourselves who've been in the industry for years who have like, Oh, yeah, we know how to find good places. And we can do it. Yeah,

Sally & Sam  13:47  

yeah. And I know what we're like, but people are time poor. And if we can outsource something for a reasonable price, we will do that. Okay,

John McGregor  13:55  

what's the So what? You both have mentioned? You've known each other for quite some time, then it seems that way. But what how do you work your business? So are you both doing the same tasks? Or are you are you want one takes care of one end and one does something else? But how do you actually structure your business working in a time

Sally & Sam  14:12  

stop we've because we weren't really across how it was going to work. And we set ourselves our email is Sam and Sally. So everything we have one email, and we would check everything to start with and we'd be across everything when we BCC everyone into everything. We did a lot of that to start with a couple of months in now we do week on week off in monitoring the emails, as silly as it sounds. And both our numbers are on the website and it just comes down to who's available. We got you know, a client needs to look at a property today. Whoever can get there quicker between Sam and I that's what we do. And I have children bless their sweet little souls. Sam does a lot more of weekend's are an after school in our appointments, things like that for us. Definitely. She does an amazing job at that. So we We just share it around how we need to. And capacity wise, we'll never plan to have a high number of clients at any one time because I think it's not your reactional role. If you've got five people that want you all at once and you're not available, then you could be doing a disservice to your client, because they need you to be there quickly for them. So yes, that's how we've worked it from now from, you know, what are we five months in? Yeah.

And whoever kind of has the initial phone call with that one client, we kind of follow that, right. 37 get confused. Yeah. We so we kind of both have out to Tuesday pay where we're working with separately, but together, make the phone call.

Patrick Berry  15:42  

So yeah, when you've got clients coming in, I guess you sort of have to be careful, you can't really have two families both wanting the similar type of thing. Can you know, you'll be baby yourself? So do you have to sort of like, I haven't really thought about it when we spoke about other buyer's agents. But I guess you really can't, you got to be selective on who you can take on and who you can't take on based on what their requirements are so that you can give them that level of service doesn't become a Sally versus Sam. So to shut it down. I'll take you take the offer. And we'll see.

Sally & Sam  16:14  

We have thought about that. Luckily, we haven't had that happen. Like we've had people want similar things, but they're in a different price bracket. Yeah. But we have it has crossed my mind before I think we've just decided that would just work for one person is just too risky. I think if one didn't get it, and the other one do.

Aaron Horne  16:31  

There's a reality. Now,

before,

Sally & Sam  16:38  

we had a few people actually asked us on a couple of points when they're interviewing us on the question, you know, are you working with other clients looking for this particular brace? And we've just very openly said, No, if we if we got to that we would put someone on hold or refer them depending on where they're looking, you know, they could be potentially referred to another buyer's agent in Tasmania, if they're an investor. So if we could do that we would rather than you know, we wouldn't have two people competing for the same.

John McGregor  17:06  

So hey, could you walk us through what it's like to build a relationship with a client? Because in purchasing a property for investments, you know, obviously a little bit different? You can, you know, play the numbers, but what about them? If you're building a relationship for a house, they're looking to move into? Yeah, you know, it's not, I can't imagine just be a 10 step questionnaire. And look, let's go for it, can you walk us through I

Sally & Sam  17:25  

know, it's a lot of time. And we do rely heavily on our property management backgrounds. And so because we've spent years in that role, where it's not just a quick sale, and then you know, not dealing with your vendor or purchaser, again, it's that long term communication building. And I think it comes naturally to us. And certainly, Sam and I are also different sorts of people. So someone, I would work well with someone more fluffy, Sam would work well with someone, but I'm not a numbers person, which is good. So we can tell usually, from that initial phone call, who that client might be best working with To start with, but I think it's just putting the time in with them, they really do need time, especially, you know, investors not so much as we said, they're looking for particular things, the yield, purchase range, all of those things. But for a tree changing, or someone wanting their dream home here in tazzy, we can be spending a lot of time with these people. And I think you just need to give them your time. In fact, they're paying for your time for you to get to know them and understand what's important to them. And something interesting, we've learned is that our opinion, what we feel about a properties and always watch if a client is looking for something that would not be ideal for us. So we learned early on a couple of things. We just went to say things more in an investment sense. Oh, no wouldn't Nope, no, no, not that area. And just certain things that we realised that, you know, the client was looking for something different than our personal opinion. So we were trying to be you know, steel, give that and be really factual and honest, but just being aware that it is not. Yeah, it's their purchase. Yeah, not ours, as much as we love spending other people's money. That's been interesting to learn. And I would say for us would be an ongoing, we just need to be mindful all the time of the clients and how they're feeling

John McGregor  19:21  

what a couple of common questions that that will come and fears that people might have about engaging a buyer's agent.

Sally & Sam  19:29  

I think fee number one would be what if everything you're telling me is a lot. Everything I can see on the internet, and everything you're showing me is great, but you're not showing me you know, the suburb or you're not giving me that information. So we make it very transparent to show them as much as we possibly can in terms of video because videos don't usually lie and we don't need it our own iPhone videos. And so I think that's a bit of a fee for people you know, will I like it? Am I getting good Value values usually easy to show for an investor because you can rely on on statistical data to help us and treat changes with values a little bit different for them. Are they going to overpay sometimes in this market? They are if they want the property, they've got to go in all guns blazing. So they would pay some fees that

I could think that's a good question.

Patrick Berry  20:23  

How does an undertaker when you tell them that they're going to purchase a ticket when you tell them they're gonna have to overpay if they want the house? Is that an easy conversation?

Sally & Sam  20:32  

I feel like they used to it now especially if they've missed out on a couple and then we've we found out what it's sold for. I know like, right. Okay. Yeah, investors, they don't really mind because then we don't want them to pay that we

want them to get a good return. But higher people meaning down, they're realising they have to pay more, because a lot of our market and I was offers over. Yeah, XML. So we're putting in high bids. Yeah. And with multiple offers, obviously, they only have their their best chance at it. So sometimes we just say to people as bluntly as this sounds, what are you prepared to lose this property for? Yeah. And sometimes they have to have to take that approach in our market, especially in Launceston where you know, it's not uncommon for our properties, and multiple offer to be sold 50 to $70,000, more than the asking prices at the moment and a lot of cash purchases. So our clients really have to be prepared if they want to treat change to perhaps overspend a little bit, which I would say, isn't the traditional role as a buyer's agent, our role is to ensure that our client isn't overpaying. But in this market, there certainly is some of that happening, I would suggest,

John McGregor  21:38  

well even think it's not even overpaying is probably the wrong word for it. Because it's more so that it's an opportunity cost really is just Yes, right now. You're not overpaying, it's just right now they do in order to secure this opportunity, this is what you have to pay. And it's as simple as that. So it's that, you know, that psychological shift in some ways, and I think the way you are approaching it, where people are just enabling themselves to be educated to know that look, you know, at the moment, you know, you can see these five properties This is the process that they've gone through. So this is the new you know, cost of this these opportunities moving you know, in the coming month, so we have to be prepared for that.

Unknown Speaker  22:15  

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's great.

Aaron Horne  22:17  

Yeah, you've nailed that Mac that was a very good mechanism.

Unknown Speaker  22:21  

sales training one on one you know,

Patrick Berry  22:25  

send him to you. Yeah, that

John McGregor  22:30  

what they're like they're like it will

Aaron Horne  22:34  

send you on a train. Well, guys, I think what we might do is wrap things up being awesome having you on I was just thinking before, like you've kind of you're fresh into this new role with the new business it'd be great to get you back on the pod maybe a year from now if interested and we could kind of just touch base again and be like, you know, what have we learnt in 2021? And how things

Sally & Sam  22:53  

are different Scott's like no, in the same room.

John McGregor  23:02  

relationship, right. Yeah.

Aaron Horne  23:06  

Yeah, no, it's really cool. It's really, really interesting to kind of find out how you guys have set up and yeah, I'm really pumped that you guys have just taken it on in this kind of crazy year and yeah, just running with it. It's really really exciting.

John McGregor  23:19  

Yeah, tell the young for five months but like you both said, You've got 21 years of real estate experience there. So the pretty deep well of knowledge that people can engage with with your services. So it's really exciting.

Sally & Sam  23:29  

Yeah, it is. It is we we say COVID has been kind to us. I think it's been a great time for us to purchase this business for people that need some help to get here and tazzy and haven't been able to So there we are.

Aaron Horne  23:42  

Alright, so that's Sally and Sam from buyer's agents, Tasmania, you can find them@www.bas.com.au so buyer's agent has got Comdata you you guys are on Facebook, Pat found on Instagram. People can reach out to you and find you. I'm sure after this Listen, they will. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thanks, guys. Well, well, well, what a great chat.

John McGregor  24:07  

Well, and we're not sweating that much. No, it's not. It's actually still pretty good.

Aaron Horne  24:11  

I think. I think it was light, breezy and easy. The The girls were really, really good to talk to and it's just it's just awesome that they're just started up kind of just taken 2020 by the balls and yeah, it's awesome.

John McGregor  24:23  

But I think like you said before, but you're surprised how What's it is synergistic there at NASA word, let's just drop that. But you know, like the idea where a probably an experienced property manager is actually probably the best person to step into a buyer's agents role.

Patrick Berry  24:37  

I think it is and I never thought about that crossover between the two different roles. But yeah, I get why those two girls are killing it in Launceston because the way a property manager does their day to day jobs. I can just see married so well when working with purchases. Absolutely. Hi.

John McGregor  24:53  

Yeah, no, no, it

Aaron Horne  24:54  

was really cool. Thank you to Sally and Sam of buyer's agents Tasmania. I think I mentioned their social And websites and stuff just before we signed off with those guys, but again, we'll add it in the show notes. We'll get a transcript done up of the show and put that all together and look it would be awesome to have him back on that we're really really engaging really interesting and I'd love to know more about Launceston.

Patrick Berry  25:14  

Yeah, me to better recognise

Aaron Horne  25:17  

Launceston? Yes. Do you remember coming up the box straight?

John McGregor  25:20  

We used to go to cause silly remember rolling up rollerblading up and down that street light one morning sands. Anyway,

Aaron Horne  25:30  

look, we don't know what's gonna happen on next week's show but a regular which is probably the three of us finally getting to bunker down and bring in some topics that we like Actually, I found a good one last night. I'm not going to mention it. I'm going to keep it under my belt.

Patrick Berry  25:42  

Whoo surprise episode. Yeah. You know, it's gonna be good when Aaron comes to the table with the content. Oh, yeah.

Aaron Horne  25:50  

Ninja Turtle. Probably a terminator reference.

Patrick Berry  25:54  

Well, folks, look forward to that next week.

John McGregor  25:57  

Listening to the property.

Aaron Horne  25:59  

Alright, thanks, guys.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai (artificial intelligence transcription)