Don't Buy A $9,500 Video Recorder

Lawyers aren't generally accused of being too cheap. I am, although I prefer to be called "good value for money".

Weka recently sold a property in Queenstown for $2.75m.  Our fee was $12,790 incl GST. 

By the time the vendors paid for advertising and photos their all up cost was $15,000 incl GST.  As a percentage of the sold price, that's 0.5%.

Selling through a traditional commission-based agent would have cost approximately $100,000 including GST, plus legal fees on top. 

I’ve been told Weka’s fee for selling real estate fee lacks credibility – one vendor client said “the other crowd are going to charge me $70,000 - what don’t I get with you?”  Another vendor said it sounded “too good to be true”.

Weka offers a genuine alternative for selling real estate in Queenstown.  The real estate industry needs competition to bring the price down.  Lack of competition leads to unrealistic prices.

In 1982, when I was eight, my parents bought a video recorder.  It cost about $2,000, which was a massive sum back then (approximately $9,500 in today’s money).  The video recorder had pride of place in our lounge and we had about eight tapes and a special notebook so we could write down what was recorded on each tape.  Why did it cost $2,000?  Because there was hardly any competition in NZ's electronics market in the 1980s.

My message - don’t buy a $9,500 video recorder.  Let's make 2024 about getting good value for money.