Sarah and Mark: First Home Buyers
Sarah and Mark had been searching for their first home for what felt like an eternity. "We must have been looking for a house for probably two years. As first homebuyers, we really didn’t know much about the market" Mark recalled. It was Sarah who first suggested reaching out to a buyer's agent after hearing about the concept through one of her colleagues. "They just said, give it a go, the first call is free of charge, and everyone offers one" Mark said. Initially sceptical, they hesitated. "We ummed and erred about that. Sarah first thought about getting a Buyer's Agent onboard in April 2022, but we didn’t actually engage anyone for a good year and a half, which hurt.”
Their hesitation proved costly. "We were annoyed we didn’t contact someone sooner. We had no idea what we were stepping into and were like, 'What could they do that we can’t? What difference are they making?'" Mark said. They assumed they could handle everything themselves, but the reality of the process soon wore them down. “For example, we thought we could do all the grunt work; call the agents, do the inspections and everything else, which is all I thought the Buyer’s Agent would be doing. So that was my scepticism and Sarah’s too”.
The turning point came when they spoke to Hugh Dillet their mortgage broker, who recommended Boyd from Property Navigation.
Boyd's assistance was a game-changer. "I was pretty naïve," Mark admitted. "First of all, the fact that Boyd went to all the inspections for us and did all the communication and negotiation, that alone is worth a lot to us. It means we didn’t lose our Saturdays to inspections and dealing with seller’s agents and all their crap. We lost heaps of weekends over the two years doing it ourselves and were laughed out the door with the offers we were putting up," Mark said, also noting that they had been looking in the wrong areas.
When they called Boyd, he stood out instantly. "The other two Buyer’s Agents we spoke to felt like they were reading from a script almost," Mark said. Boyd, however, provided plenty of advice. "He was like, ‘I’ll be honest, you are looking in the wrong areas, this is where you gotta look.’ We could have walked away from that call without even engaging Property Navigation in a far better position because he gave us so much free advice, it was really helpful" Mark said.
Boyd’s straightforwardness was both refreshing and necessary, and as Mark recalled "Boyd wasn’t afraid to tell us the truth." Their initial budget was $800k, and they were looking in areas like Tarragindi and Salisbury, which were out of their reach. "He said, ‘To be frank, you’re looking in the wrong areas, you should be looking in Acacia Ridge or Darra.’ And we were pretty disappointed, he could probably feel it too" Mark admitted. They had grown up around Acacia Ridge and Darra and didn’t like those areas. “We were pretty bummed about that. As Homevestors, we did not like, nor want, to live in those areas, so we wanted to look elsewhere.”
However, Boyd’s honesty helped them set realistic expectations.
“After we engaged Property Navigation, Boyd worked with us to develop our own specific criteria which informed our Buyer’s Brief document. This clearly outlined everything we wanted in our home.”
Now that the discussions and further education with Boyd had been fully absorbed, Sarah and Mark’s Buyer’s Brief opened up considerably. Understanding that the areas originally discussed were not preferred, Property Navigation’s data team performed analysis on over 500 suburbs in South-east Queensland, and presented options for suburbs with strong growth drivers in Brisbane’s East, that were closer to the water and more idyllic suburbs that matched their expectations and criteria.
"When we spoke to Boyd, he was like, ‘I’ll find you a house you like in 8-12 weeks,’ and Sarah and I looked at each other and said, ‘as if.’ We were like ‘yeah, not even’… We were so pessimistic about it that it wasn’t funny. And then he found us a house we loved in like two months from engagement to signing of the contract. We couldn’t even believe it. We never knew we wanted to live where we are now, but we love it here. Boyd worked through our criteria and found us exactly what we wanted" Mark said. They now love where they live, even though they never expected to be living Bayside.
Boyd’s availability was another huge plus. "He was almost on call for us 24/7. Like, we could message him anytime, Sunday 6pm…he would answer. Not right away, but always that day, which you sort of need when you are buying a house," Mark said.
One of the most memorable aspects of working with Boyd was his energy and enthusiasm. "The seller's agent that we ended up buying from was like, ‘Boyd just didn’t stop calling me about inspections,’ he was like a bulldog," Mark said, clearly impressed.
Reflecting on the process, Mark struggled to find any negatives. "Everything, everything was good," he said. Property Navigation’s fees were also the most reasonable they encountered.
"We’ve referred Boyd to a heap of people, it’s worth every cent… seriously. He was a massive help and I reckon once anyone uses Boyd, you can’t really picture the process without him. He has even offered to provide his advice on any future renovations, all we have to do is give him a call. Boyd’s also put us in touch with a few other people as well, like financial advisors. We have really started to realise the value of having people around us who know their shit" Mark concluded.
Reviews
What other happy customers say.
"We’ve referred Boyd to a heap of people, it’s worth every cent… seriously. He was a massive help and I reckon once anyone uses Boyd, you can’t really picture the process without him”
- Mark Hinsch
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