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The Local Ormeau Property Chat with Brett Reddell
Your home is your biggest asset—make sure you’ve got the right advice.
Join Brett Reddell, Ormeau’s trusted real estate expert, as he shares short, sharp episodes packed with insights to help you make smarter property decisions. Whether you’re thinking of selling, planning ahead, or just want to stay informed—Brett breaks down what’s really happening in the local market and why it matters to you.
Real tips. Local knowledge. Straight from the guy who knows Ormeau best.
Hi, and welcome to the Local Ormeau Property Chat Podcast. I'm Brett Reddell, your trusted local real estate expert for Ormeau and Ormeau Hills. Whether you're buying, selling, or just curious about the market, this podcast is here to give you the insights and advice you need, plus a little community connection along the way.
With a passion for selling family homes to families, I'm here to share practical tips and expert knowledge to help you make confident real estate decisions. Let's get started.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Ormeau Property, Local Ormeau Property Chat Podcast. Uh, today's episode is a little bit different, because instead of talking about what sellers should do, I thought we'd put Brett and Ethan on the spot. Now, these guys spend every week helping people prepare to sell their home, so I wanted to ask them one simple question.
If you were selling your home tomorrow in this particular market, what would you actually do? What would you renovate? What would you stage it? How would you price it? What would you spend your money on, and what wouldn't you? I think this is gonna be really interesting conversation because we're taking away the theory and actually talking about what Brett and Ethan would do if they were selling their own home-
Yep
tomorrow. All right, so th- let's think about this. Firstly, Brett, what h- sort of home... Let's talk about the home you've got.
Yep.
If you're putting it on the market, let's- Yep ... understand what we're dealing with.
So if I look at, say, my investment, uh, four, two, and two, two living areas.
Okay.
So straightforward home, nothing flash, perfect home for a family, young family, uh, first home buyer, investor, either way.
So we know we've got that covered.
Mm-hmm.
I would then start looking online and see what other houses are doing, because you've got to research what they do. Don't just think because it's your home and it looks great and I've got this bright red wall that it's gonna work. You need to have a look at what other people are doing, have a look at the photos.
Even coming down to go out and have a look at some display homes, see what the trends are, see what the colors are. Just get a feel of what you need to do to prep it. What you're up against. Well, you are. You're up-- your competition. Well, that's a whole other thing, competition. I, I tell people when I sell their house, "Go out and have a look at open homes.
Go see what you're up against, but have a look at ones that are like yours-
Yep ...
so you know what your competition's about." But we'll move on to that. So, so I would do that personally. Um, and then I'd take the time to make sure I get it right, 'cause I want it to present really, really well. Um, I need to take the emotion out of it because the emotion's gone once you wanna sell your house.
It's not an emotional thing, it's a transactional thing. So we wanna get it transacted, sold, and I wanna get the money and buy another house. So I need to learn to do that because we've all got our emotions in our homes of what happened, like when he was little and he bumped his head or whatever it might be, or chipped a tooth or-
Mm
sister did something wrong to him and he didn't like it. Like, the- they're there forever.
Yep.
You know, they don't go away. Um, from that, I'd then work out a plan of how I need to do it. There's no point in me going out the front and making the yard look great and the garden look good and I'm still two weeks off, 'cause guess what's gonna happen in two weeks?
It grows.
Yep. So timing.
Timing's important, yeah. So that's the plan. So work out, what do I need to do? Most of the time you can get your house presented, cleaned, and you can maintain it, which is really good. Um, getting your windows done, the screens done, wanna have it nice and clear, it looks good. Uh, wanna make sure that the kitchen's cleaned, your grout's right in your bathrooms, the silicone's right in your bathrooms.
You wanna avoid any issues with wet area problems. Just those sorts of things. It's a The little things that the building and pest guys pick on, so we want to make sure that I, I would get that right.
Yep. So what are those types of things? What are the, the building and pest, what are the little things that, um, you'd go, go after looking for before that, that inspection happens?
So let's start outside.
Yep.
So when you go outside your house, you've got little holes in your walls. They're called weep holes. You want to make sure they're clear. The next thing is you want to make sure they're at least, don't quote me on this, builders out there, I think it's 75 mil above the ground.
They've got to be above. So that's your gap. So that's your visual gap. Uh, sometimes you see decks will come up and they actually cross into that weep hole- Right ... which is then an issue. So you want to make sure that there's none of that. No plants up against the wall. That's called bridging. So termites are lovely little things.
They don't like to be seen. They're dirty, so when you do see them, you'll know because they trek along. But they climb up into pot plants, they get onto leaves, they go down, they weigh it down with their body weights till they get to the hole and they just transition in.
Really?
That's what they do.
They're sacrificial in that sense. So, um, they don't want to be seen, they don't want to be found. That's why they can eat at your house and it won't fall down, because they're structural engineers at the end of the day. Um, they're very good at what they do. They're very silent. Um, so I want to make sure that externally all that's gone.
No timber on the ground, no rubbish laying around. You want to make sure that if the dog's been out there digging holes, they fill it in, put a bit of turf in. It's got to look good, because remember, somebody's gonna come in and Johnny's gonna play in that backyard. The kids are gonna kick a ball, they're gonna have a swing set or a trampoline So that's externally.
Make sure your roof looks good, make sure your fascia's are clean. There's no mold. Mold's a big thing. Like, we have back patios that are, are made out of colorbond. When the condensation sits on it and it dries, you get that dark staining. Well, that's mold starting to stain, so that'll eat into your surface.
Don't go and gurney it. Get a company called SoftWash. Get them, uh, guys to come out and softwash it. Um, I won't go into what that is, but it is actually a very non-evasive process of cleaning a house to make it look good. Same as fences. People get gurneys out there, and they're gurneying the black off the fence posts.
That's actually onset mold getting into your timber. When you're gurneying it, you're punching that out of it, so you're actually digging into the timber so the fence looks worse, but you're not killing the mold, you're moving it , moving it to the next area. Yeah. So again, a softwash looks good. It actually kills the mold.
Fence looks incredible. So I do all the outside. I call it the dinner on the plate- Right ... at a restaurant.
Yep.
Someone comes out, plate of food looks good. You wanna buy it, you buy it. You're halfway there, aren't you?
Yep.
So if somebody's walking in, they go, "Wow, look at this yard. It's amazing. This garden's beautiful.
The flowers are nice." It
changes the mindset as they walk through the door,
doesn't it? Positive.
Mm.
I always ... It's something we do is we always talk to people about positive/negative. So the positive is get people in positive and keep positive flow. Um, the negative is, oh, the yard looks terrible, the grass is too long, it's patchy.
So they're negative when they get in, and then, then they'll start to pick on things that aren't really that bad. It, it
takes a bit to get them back, doesn't it? I mean-
It's really hard ...
it would be, it would be ... I would say, Ethan, that it would be very rare that someone sees the outside and is really disappointed- Mm
and then is blown away by the inside and yet- Mm ... you, you really get them back quickly.
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, in our area specifically, um, I wouldn't say there's many houses that are like that.
Mm.
You know? Uh, as long as the front presents nice, it's, you know, it is a, a nice house. Um-
I think what sellers forget is buyers are better educated And they know what they like.
And we get it all the time, don't we? 'Cause we do take a lot of effort to present our homes to make sure they're right, and we get a lot of buyers coming in and going, "Oh my gosh, I was just at an open home and it was disgraceful. It was filthy dirty. It wasn't clean. The yard was long."
Mm.
But that's an agent problem, not an owner problem.
Mm. '
Cause the agent should've educated the owner better, and talked about presentation. That's what you do when you sit down to sell the house.
Yeah.
You present it. I bet you they'd do it to their own house if they were selling it.
Yeah. What do you guys ... Uh, that just has opened up a question for me. Have you ever had this happen, and what have you done about it, where you- You know what I'm about to ask, don't you?
Oh. Where you ha- you've given them the education, you've given them ... Yeah, and they just haven't done it. You've turned up to the open to open their house for them, and they're ... It's just not up to scratch for what you've told them to do. What, what do you ... As an agent, what do you do in those circumstances?
Look, it's really hard because ... And I, I'm not gonna go into a specific too much because I don't want anyone feeling it was them.
Yep. Mm.
Um, but we have had a situation where the feedback had been constantly narrowed around two particular topics, and I had delivered that each time, to the point I was getting- What,
two areas of presentation that weren't up to scratch?
Is that what we're talking about?
Probably n- to do with the nose presentation. Right. If that makes sense. Yep. Um, we'll call it a smell, I suppose.
Nose presentation.
Yeah. Um, one of the main senses of the body. Well, it, it is. Like, if you walk into something that doesn't smell right, it's not right. No,
absolutely.
And we have a special candle we've designed for that sort of scenario, but anyway. Um, so I delivered that feedback each time, and we had a lot of buyers through. Um, we ended up selling it, but somebody didn't care because they knew they could change that.
Right.
Carpet paint fixes everything, so they fixed it.
But it was negative and offensive, and I was getting a lot of pushback on that saying, "No, no, no, no. It's not the way. It doesn't happen. It doesn't smell like that." But that's that insular feel like, um, when you're in your house every day, you don't notice it.
Mm.
When you go out of your house and then come back in, you should notice it.
At least for that first few seconds, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's like when I was in retail, I used to say to other store managers, "Stop standing and looking out of your shop. Stand out the front and look in your shop."
Mm. "
Look what your customers look at."
Yeah.
And that's the same as an open home. Go to another open home and smell it and feel the environment, and then come back to your house and see what somebody's experiencing when they walk into your house, because that's really important.
So that was a lot of pushback. The other one was a rental, actually, which is the same. We had two ladies come to the door, separate occasions, and they both went, "We're not going in." 'Cause it hit them, and they were like two meters from the front door.
Wow.
And it hit them right in the face. So we ended up selling that once we got the tenant out, unfortunately.
Tenant didn't care. Um, it was just terrible.
Yep. Mm. Yep. Can you think of a example where a property where they did make a few, you know, subtle changes that really made a huge difference to the final result?
I mean, like, with, I mean, plenty of houses, it doesn't really matter what house in particular. Yeah.
But like, uh, just doing the gardens, like, i- just a week before at least, or even mowing the lawn. Like, I know that's a small thing, and a lot of people don't really want- Oh, look- ... to go and do it. But like, if you just mow the lawn, it looks nice at the front, and people actually enjoy walking towards the house.
Yeah. Oh, look, I mean, if you wanna go overboard, I mean, I'd, I'd look at mowing it half an hour before the open home, then you get the smell of the grass and everything as you- Oh, we'll be stinking ... as you're walking. We
don't want that, no. Oh, she's
a nice one.
We, we actually tell people to mow it the afternoon before.
Right. So do it in the afternoon so it's not getting burnt, and that gives it overnight just to get a little bit more greenery back on the tops of the tips of the grass. Yeah. So that presents well the next day. That's your best timing we've found.
Yep.
Um, if you mow it in the morning and the open home's after lunch, it's possibly, if it's summer, it's gonna brown off.
So we want it to look nice and feel nice. Yep. Uh, just- Yeah. It's just the right time. I mean,
like, I'm, I wouldn't really call it, uh, a small things. I've never really done it, but like, i- even just, like, fixing up minor paint issues on the outside- Mm ... of your house, like, it just makes it look nicer. Hide a face
mate.
Yeah, it makes it appear better, you know? Mm. People don't look at it and think it's gonna be another job or another chore, because o- in all honesty, the last thing you wanna do after going through all the stress of buying a home is fixing it all up. Mm.
Yeah. Don't sell them a cost.
Yeah.
Don't sell them a repair cost.
Yep. Yep. So making sure that you can, um, you can cover all, all bases where it looks like there's gonna be a cost involved to have to get it to where a seller, a, a buyer, should I say- Yeah ... might want it to be for them.
Well, then it's the niggly things. Look, gardens, they're personal. People are gonna change a garden.
They're gonna rip it out. They go, "I don't like grass, I'm gonna put in fake grass." Everyone has their own reasons of what they do externally. Internally, as long as it's in good repair, it's okay.
Yep
Someone might change a paint job later on, but you don't wanna leave it. Like I said, there's no silicone in around your tiles and there's a gap.
Well, water's like sheep, it follows itself. Yeah. Soon as one trickle goes in, all the trickles go in. Now it's suddenly water in your wall. Now we're talking about termite issues. There's a whole collective. Building and pest guys, they get so excited. You can hear them in there giggling 'cause they found something, and they're taking photos and they've got their little machines.
They're checking water, and they're like, "Oh, this is exciting." And you can see them, they get pumped up and they're amped up and ... Sorry all you building and pest guys out there, you know it's true. But they're, they're focused on like, "Wow, I've got something." They've gotta try and find 10 things at least.
When they go into a house and they can't find anything, they're disappointed, but it's actually a positive.
Yeah.
Someone's maintained their house. That's a good thing.
Mm.
So.
Absolutely. Absolutely. With the market, um, you know, starting to, to change to what we've had for a long, long time now, is there anything you'd recommend to, um, to sellers to be doing with their properties now that, um, you know, they're not selling as quickly, that the market is starting to peter off, that wouldn't have been as important, you know, two years ago?
Just keep the maintenance up. Just if you, if you maintain your property, it will be better for you in the end. Um, I tell all the new owners, make sure you walk around your property once a week. Just have a walk around your house.
See what you notice.
Even if you're on the phone, just walk around the house and have a look.
Just check what's going on, make sure there's no timber, make sure there's no bridging. We talk about plants on walls. Just the little things. Do that. If a bit of quad falls out from under the soffits, fix it. Mm. Don't leave it there, because if you're leaving it there, now you've got other issues. Like we looked at a house the other day, um, which is we're listing.
We've just got a time period to go through, but there was ants coming up the wall. Now, we took a video to send to the pest guy. The roof was alive with ants. Like literally, there was thousands of them, thousands. There were so many up there on, on the actual roof.
Mm.
It was just, unfortunately it was managed by another company.
Was it poorly managed? I'm gonna say yes. I'm not gonna say who, but yeah, it was 100% not the first one they've poorly managed. To point, oh, she's- was just disgraceful. That should've been tended to, 'cause what happens, ants get in the ceiling, now they bring mud in, water, 'cause they like to build a nest. Now we're getting other issues.
If there's mold that gets in that ceiling, that could be a detriment to the tenants. So just, just do the little things, the maintenance. Just make sure your houses are right always. Just fix it so it's not a big cost at the other end.
Sure.
Well, sorry, to, to elaborate on that, buyers see something small as a large cost.
So it could be a $5 fix and it could be $1,000 to get a, "Now I want a tradesperson to come in and have it done under a tradesperson's license." You don't want that.
Absolutely. Look, thanks again for joining us for another episode of the, uh, Ormeau, Local Ormeau Property Chat Podcast. Hopefully today's conversation has given you some practical ideas that, uh, you can start thinking a- about well before your home even goes on the market.
Now, if you are considering selling in Ormeau or Ormeau Hills and would like honest advice on where to spend your money or time, or even just what the market's doing right now, get a free appraisal. Please give Ethan, uh, and Brett a, a call. They're always available, always there to answer any of your questions and, um, answer any of the things you'd like to know about the local area.
As the, the, uh, name of this podcast suggests, uh, Ormeau and Ormeau Hills is their backyard. They've been here for decades, and what they don't know about this area isn't worth knowing. Jump in, give them a call. If you've enjoyed this, um, episode, please hit subscribe and look, do us a favor, share this with others that you know in the local area, you know, who are thinking of buying or selling.
It's a huge amount of value in all the episodes as you look back. Thanks again for joining us and, uh, guys, look forward to talking to you on the, uh, the next episode.
Sounds good. Cheers, mate. Good. Thanks.
Thanks for listening to the Local Ormeau Property Chat Podcast. I hope you found today's episode helpful and feel more empowered on your real estate journey.
My goal is to provide you with valuable advice while staying connected to our amazing community here in Ormeau and Ormeau Hills. Remember, selling family homes to families is what I do best, and I'm here to support you every step of the way. Stay tuned for more tips, insights, and local area knowledge in the next episode.
I'll see you then