blog.buysellrealestate.com.au

According to a report in today’s Sunday Mail, former Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has recently bought a property in the mountains near Brevard, North Carolina, USA.

What gets me is the low standard of journalism shown by the Sunday Mail. This was today’s front page article, with a headline that said something like, “Beattie buys a bargain”. Here’s a real estate in North Carolina” href=”http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23714511-952,00.html” target=”_self”>quote from the online version of the article:

“While ordinary Queenslanders struggle with high interest rates, mortgage stress and rising petrol prices, Mr Beattie is believed to have landed a bargain courtesy of the US financial storm deemed responsible for the world’s current economic gloom – the collapse of the subprime property market.”

The article then goes on to talk about how much Beattie is being paid in his role as Queensland’s trade commissioner to the USA, and about how he’s picked up an absolute “bargain” buy. Yet, the final paragraph in the printed version of this article noted that it was not known how much Beattie paid for the property. That’s right - according to the Sunday Mail Premier Pete has allegedly bought an absolute bargain, but we have no idea what he paid for it. Good one.

There was just a short item on last night’s television news, so I don’t have many details about it just yet, but yesterday a home in Sydney was successfully sold via an online auction. Video footage of the auctioneer was beamed over the internet, with people submitting bids in real time without actually being at the property.

It all looked ok to me, and I can’t think of too many problems. I’m not sure how the auctioneer and the selling agent feels about it. They often like to stand around and chat with the bidders to see how they’re going during the auction process, and I guess they can’t really do that in this situation. Although I suppose the bidders would have to submit all of their details to register to bid, so they would have phone numbers available.

Would you sell your home with an online auction?