Entering into the New Zealand property market can be a confusing business. We’ve been struck by how absurd things seem to us – a house with no price listed and the selling arrangement is by Deadline Sale. Which, for the uninitiated is basically a blind auction with a set date for all offers to be submitted by and no come back if you’re not the winning party. The purpose of this is to get buyers to “put their best foot forward” (a phrase which must be in the real-estate manual as I’ve heard it from everyone I’ve asked what the heck this is all about). Negotiation is more back and forth but Multi-offers is much similar to a Deadline Sale but not quite as confidential and For Sale can be an offers over situation OR that’s the sale price. It has been a bit of a confusing business for us and we’ve been incredibly thankful for the advice of a friend (and also real estate agent) to guide us and view some properties by our side.

We’ve also found that there are agents you want to deal with and others you’d rather not. We turned up to one property with no agent to be seen but a vendor home – he was nice enough to show us around but was a bit miffed as the agent had told him she’d confirmed the time with us (utter BS) and had also given the wrong time to someone else who had turned up at 7pm the night before. Other agents are brilliant and if we ever sell we know who we’d use in the area!

All of this has been fascinating but frustrating, especially when we’ve found a place we want to put an offer on. This home is by “deadline sale” and all we can do is put an offer in and pray for the best. So, tomorrow before we fly we need to set up bank accounts and hopefully meet with a solicitor to keep things moving when we’re back in Aussie…. More news to come!