Communication, Communication, Communication
The key to the success of this proprety purchase was the level of communication between the agents and the buyer(s) - in this case the buyer was a charitable trust. That doesn'r mean we were inundated with emails, texts and phone calls. It means we received a level of communication that was appropriate, timely and helpful.
This was particularly important when I had to reach out for agreement from the other trustees, some overseas at the time, at various points in the process. Sarah knew we had our own process, and didn't push when it took whatever time it did.
However, she always contacted me whenever something important was happening, such as when a prior offer fell over, and we had the opportunity to investigate the property in more depth, review our options and make one ourselves. Again there was no unnecessary pressure here.
Another very helpful aspect of communication was the quality of information provided. This was a house of 100 years plus, which understandably had been altered and updated. Unhelpfully, when we checked the property bag at Auckland Council for consents and such-like, we found the bag completely empty. We were a bit dumbfounded, but some outstanding detective work by Julie (including marketing campaigns from prior sales and aerial shots of the house going back to the 1940's!) reassured us that we weren't putting the trust at any risk. After reassuring myself, I forwarded that remarkable piece of work to our lawyer for his information, and he commented on its quality and said he was going to add the name to his list of agents to use in th future.
So thank you Sarah and Julie, for a real quality job, and keeping the stress levels (for me anyway) at an absolute minimum. We are delighted with our purchase.
