Buyer’s agent’s tactics at their best: Pullenvale
The Brief
Locate acreage in a Brisbane West suburb suitable for a new house build. The block was to be a premium site as the end goal was to build a home that could be resold for profit if required. It was essential that the building site was as close to flat as possible to capitalise on the views from every angle and save on costs by removing the need for retaining walls.
The Strategy
A shortlist of all possible blocks in Pullenvale was made. This included vacant blocks of land and every block with a house on it that was a potential ‘pull down.’ It was essential that the houses were in a bad enough shape that we were paying for land value only. There is no sense in paying for a house when you are going to remove it.
A drive by of every block was completed and an analysis done of the shortlisted blocks.
One of the top 3 shortlisted blocks had been on the market 2 years prior with a local agent and had no sold. We located the phone number of the owner and ascertained that the block was still for sale. The agent’s sales authority had expired which presented a fantastic opportunity to purchase the block without any price loading of the agent’s fees.
Within 3 days a contract of sale was signed, and we had two very happy parties.
The Property
The block that was purchased was in Herron Road, Pullenvale’s most premiere street and one of the most premiere streets in Brisbane, with houses fetching as much as $6.5m (the properties with city views). The property is 1.5 hectares and has an 82-metre frontage. Nicknamed, “The Park,” the property features a bio-diverse area at the rear that is home to an array of stunning native trees including 150-year- old eucalypts, tuckeroos, Lilly Pillys and Jacarandas. The front two-thirds of the block is rolling green grass and is a passing thoroughfare for wallabies and deer at dusk.
The Suburb - Pullenvale
Pullenvale is situated approximately 15 kilometres west of the Brisbane central business district. Located in the southern foothills of Mount Elphinstone in the D’Aguilar Ranges, Pullenvale features rolling hills, paddocks and areas of bush land. It is spread over an area of approximately 24.4 square kilometres with the eastern side bordering the 490-hectare Pullenvale State Forest. The winding roads of Pullenvale are lined with boutique rural acreage and very generous character homes with a strong pastoral feel and the occasional tennis court.
One of the theories as to where Pullenvale got its name was that there was a Mr Pullen who had a vineyard at Pullenvale from about the 1862 to at least 1885.
The Numbers
- Budget: $1,100,000
- Purchase price: $1,000,000
- Bank valuation after 2 months: $1,200,000
- Estimated value of house and land once completed: $2,600,000
Illustrative image as the cover.
