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When it comes to real estate in Beenleigh and Eagleby, there’s one name you need to know: Benjamin Waite. As a trusted expert with deep local knowledge, proven results, and a passion for helping clients succeed, Benjamin is the go-to agent for sellers, buyers, and investors in the region. Worth the Waite is more than just a podcast—it’s your insider guide to Beenleigh's property markey, offering valuable insights and strategies designed to position you for success in the property market.
From understanding local trends to maximising your property’s value, each episode equips you with the tools and knowledge you need to make confident Real Estate decisions. With a friendly yet professional approach, Benjamin shares real-world advice, stories, and tips, making complex real estate topics accessible and actionable. Whether you’re planning your next move or simply want to stay informed, tune in weekly and discover why working with Benjamin is always Worth the Waite!
Looking to stay ahead in the Beenleigh and Eagleby property market. Want to get local insights from someone who knows this community inside and out. Then you've come to the right place. I'm Benjamin wait and welcome to Worth the Wait Beenleigh and Eagle Bee's Local property podcast where we'll be diving into everything you need to know about real estate right here in our beautiful region.
Hello and welcome to Worth the Wait, the Real Estate podcast that gives you the straight up local advice for buying and selling right here in Beenleigh and Eagleby. I'm here as always with Benjamin Waite from LJ Hooker Beenleigh. And today it's all about pest and building reports. And whether you're buying or selling, this is something you need to understand.
What do they really tell you? When should you get one? Who should be getting one and how they can save you from some expensive surprises. Ben, welcome to Worth The Wait Podcast. Thank you. Good to see you, Adam. Excellent. You too. You too. Alright, now this is a bit of a tricky one. Who should be getting the building a pest report and when?
It's not that tricky, really. I think that everybody should be getting a, building a pest report. I think well let me break it down. I've gone a bit too widespread with that first question. Should a seller have one ready in hand on open house day? Yes. Saying we've already got it here. Have a look.
Yes. Do you suggest to all
your sellers that they do that? I absolutely suggest it strongly very strongly. So I would say that 95% of all of my clients end up getting one strong recommendation by my team. I think the reason why I, as an agent want to know. What's happening with the house is because I don't like surprises.
No, you, you want the sale as much as the, as
everyone, when you get to that point I wanna know the product, I wanna know the product that we're selling. There's nothing worse than having a fantastic campaign. We've got, the right buyers, the right price, everybody's happy, everything's agreed too.
It's all lining up. And then the buyer then goes and gets a building and pest report and they find that there's live termites in a fence paling. A hundred meters away from the hou probably not a hundred meter, at the back fence and first time buyer freaks out. Yep. And kills a deal, terminates a contract, and I get that.
I live and breathe real estate I'm desensitized to a lot of those little things, but as a first time buyer, I get that can be a big concern, a red flag. But if we knew ahead of time. We could just get the fence paling fixed, treat the area, and you've got a claim Bill of health.
Exactly. So for the sake of spending, up to six or $700 on a building and pest report, I think it's a no brainer. I wouldn't sell a car unless I had the mechanical go over it before I wanted to sell it. I think it's the same for a house. You don't need to be scared about the building and pest report as a seller, you don't have to fix everything.
As long as you're aware of it. I wanna be aware of it as a real estate agent so that I know. 'cause my goal at the end of the day is to reduce barriers for someone to make a decision. Sure. That's my goal. Yep. That's my task. Yep. So if we've got a retaining wall that's falling over that we didn't know about for some reason, maybe, I don't know there's some that they've found it or we've got a moisture in a wall that we didn't know about.
We can get a quote for it. We can get a quote for it, have it fixed. If a buyer comes through and sees it, it saves them low balling us or just throwing zeros at it. Yep. Say, look, we are aware of it. This is happening. We're being transparent. Actually, this is how much it costs. Yep. We've got a quote here.
Yep. Fact factor that into your price. Yep. So a lot of the time people will use, buyers will use building and pest reports as an opportunity to. Bargain down the price after the fact. Now, I don't think that's in the spirit of things. I don't like it when people do that. And not everybody does it, but there's certain buyers that will go out and do that.
So let's just take that opportunity away from them. Yep. So ultimately at the end of the day, it means more money in your pocket as a seller.
Alright. So you advise every one of your listings to your sellers to, to do this. Yep. How many of them do?
No, I'd say 95% of them. Okay. Do you still take the listing on if they don't I do, but I give them warning and sure enough.
Most of the time, something will come back and I'll say, look, this is why we wanna do the building in Pest report. Do you think 5% do it? Because they know there's something there.
I think, I would like to think, not Adam. I'd like to think not.
It's my job to ask the hard questions. Yeah, yeah. The 5% that say no for the building in pest.
Still, they still hold on to the historical, methodology or principle or thought that it's buyer beware and it's up to the buyer,
right? It's their expense. They should do it. It's their expense. We're good. They're doing their due diligence. I'm not here to do their due diligence.
They'll pay for it when the time comes. Yeah. I'm not gonna bother.
So I just, I. Just reiterate the fact that I can understand that. No, I can understand that too. And it's his it's historic. It's a historical culture. Yeah. So I totally get that. I just remind them that I am here to make this as efficient, as streamlined as possible.
And in my experience and over the hundreds and hundreds of houses that I've sold, this seems to be far more efficient and more streamlined. I'd rather have the property. Sit in preparation mode for an extra two weeks, then rush it to market with no building in past, or get those quotes then with the question mark over it, and then having a contract fall over, because then we're at two months Yeah.
Rather than two weeks. It comes back to your whole first launch thing. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So you pay me or you pay an agent to get you the best price in the quickest time.
Okay.
That's it.
Is this a thing? Do any buyers you, your seller's got one. Yep. It's there. I know where you're going, Adam.
Yes. Do they trust it? Yeah. Do you get others who say, I will be getting my own Yes. Independent one. Yep. And get a second one done.
Yep. Great question. And I would say probably it's changing, so more and more buyers are becoming accustomed to, sellers have providing it. I think just really quickly, one thing to note.
Building and pest. You can get six building and pest reports on one property and they can all be slightly different. Yep. It is subjective. Yep. However, every build, there is a industry standard. There's a license they need to go and get. So they are governed by an overarching kind of, license or mandate or whatever.
Absolutely. Yeah. So I think even though reports can be different slightly, for the most part every inspector will be looking for the same things. They use the same terminology, they use the same classing. So I'll just I'll say that A lot of sellers will say, look, will the buyer use this report?
There's a couple of different tactics or strategies around that. I would say 70%. It's becoming more and more You typically had it for auctions leading into auctions. So people are used to that.
Ah, you are about to go into the bid. My bid, yes. Before. Before you buy. Before you bid. Yes. So start from there.
Go. Cool.
I'll give 'em a little plug. They're called before you, the, before you buy, they were, before you bid. What's given them a bit of credibility and a bit of. Having sellers, having a building in pest is that there, there's now a button on realestate.com in the listing that you can actually order and download the link.
Download, download it. So that adds another level of transparency and credibility Yeah. Being on there. Absolutely. But the way their model works, so rather than a seller going and getting an inspector to come out and I get that. And I would probably have a little bit of, maybe some hesitation around that, because that could be your best mate.
Or it could be, so with the situation, like before you buy, they are, they're a platform that just looks after the money. So this, it's half price for the seller. It's half price for the end buyer. Wow. Okay. And then every buyer along the way is charged to download the report.
Right.
So they make their money on the seller and the buyer, and then multiple buyers along the way. So that's how the platform makes their money. Interesting. Little business model. Yeah it's quite good. Different agents will operate it differently where the seller pays for all of it. The buyer pays for all of it, or no buyer along the middle pays to download it.
I've got it. Half, half and a little bit because I just think that's fair. Yep. But it's up to the agent and I think that's the beauty of their model.
It would be nice too, as you for an agent to see. Or know that they've downloaded it. Correct. You've got a serious buyer. Correct. Someone's seriously considering it.
Gauges intent helps us gauge intent. Absolutely. So that's quite good. And I think that there's a little bit of skin in the game as well. Yep. And I think that if the seller, this is my opinion, if the seller was to pay for all of it, we're still in the same situation. Yep. It could be in your mate.
Yep.
That's where I've come from with these questions. Yeah. And I was gonna throw in here towards the end. Are there a difference between your pest and building in inspectors? Yeah. Are, there is, are there good and bad ones? And I don't, am I asking you two hard, a question to answer there?
Yeah. No. There it's like every job. Yep. There's good and bad people in every job. Yeah. There's good agents and bad agents. Yeah. There's good, marketers and bad marketers yes. I think the more thorough the person, the better it is. Some of them can scare buyers off in my experience, especially when we're dealing with first time buyers
go a bit overboard.
Oh, crazy. They're at the property for three hours and do, and they're pouring over every little thing.
Alright. Let me tweak the question a little bit. Do certain or do on the whole. People doing this for? For the buyer or seller, do they slant it towards their client? The one paying for it?
Are they being far, let's say far more thorough? Yeah. For the buyer, yes. And far less thorough? Yeah. For the seller, does that happen? It might. It's
human nature. Yep. I guess deliberately not. No. Yeah I think that, again I'm gonna be, I'm gonna give people benefit of the doubt. Yep. I'm a pretty trusting type of guy and I would expect the way that I would treat people would be way that I would expect them to treat me.
So I'm gonna go around and I'm gonna give people the benefit of the doubt until, proven otherwise. I think the. The difference the reason why I like to use the platform I was talking about is because they've got a panel of 10 Yep. That are already inspectors in Brisbane. And they're operat in operation around in Australia.
So again, I'm giving them a bit of a plug, but I just like the transparency around their model. They choose, the panel of inspector just comes out. We order the job and the inspector comes out. It can be a different inspector each time. And we just get the report. Yeah. So we don't meet the inspector. The seller doesn't meet the inspector.
The buyer doesn't meet the inspector. It's all done beforehand.
Yep.
So it removes what you are talking about out of the equation. Sure. And also it's transparent. It's an arm's reach from everybody, so that's why I like it. Yep. If you are going to engage your own inspector as a seller, yes. They might try and work for you, the client a little bit more.
Yep. If you're the buyer, they might try and work for you, the buyer a little bit more. 'cause you're the, you are the client. Yep. So if you can get an independent situation, I think that this model, this company has recognized that and they've pitched themselves as a little bit of a, to fulfill that gap in the market.
Perfect.
Perfect. Look, whether you're buying or selling, pest and building reports are one of the most powerful tools for protecting your investment, no doubt, or for giving buyers that peace of mind. And the good news is you don't have to figure this all out alone. If you're preparing to buy or sell, and you want advice on how to manage this process smoothly, Ben is here to help reach out to him at LJ Hooker Beenleigh, or online at.
Benjamin wait.com au. And as always, please don't forget to subscribe to Worth the wait on your favorite podcast platform. Or of course, if you do wanna watch these two very handsome men, we are available on YouTube. And look, so you'll never miss real estate advice that matters in. The best place in the world, isn't it?
Absolutely. Beenleigh and Eagleby. Fantastic. See you on the next episode, Ben. Thank you.
See ya.
Thanks for tuning in to Worth the wait. If you enjoyed the podcast, please be sure to share with a friend and don't forget to hit that subscribe so you won't miss an episode. And all my local property tips, updates, and insights. Until next time, I'm here when you need.