I recently attended with my wife Agnes, a Thai Restaurant for dinner. This particular “Franchise chain” restaurant had received some favourable press (obviously paid for) so I thought we would check it out.

Fancy looking shop front, lots of people, big brand, big adverts, perception is it would be a good place right?

Wrong.

When I arrived we looked at the sign that said we were to wait to be seated, and I waited to be greeted. After a minute a young staffer asked me to take a seat pointing to one that we noticed was not wiped, and “sticky/ greasy”. As the staffer went away quick and pronto we decided to move to an adjacent less greasy table.

At that point, I noticed a general lack of cleanliness elsewhere in the restaurant. I was less than settled and had a grumble to my wife.

Guess I am spoilt with my regular Thai that I noticed the gap.

After what seemed like 5 minutes we were greeted and handed menus. Yet when we looked around there were plenty of staff on duty, 4 of them were congregated around one table watching one staffer trying to clean a table, not too well either, and giggling.

We ordered 5 minutes later, I asked for a soft drink and we ordered the food. It was a reasonable menu, good variety.

Agnes was served her entree, an oyster egg thingy that didn’t make sense at all. She said it tasted Ok. I didn’t get my entree till she was nearly finished hers. (That always annoys me). Then we noticed no Pepsi Max yet. How hard can it be to bring out a soft drink? (Ours took 20 minutes).

To cut to the chase, the food was pretty good. (Not great). Due to the poor first impressions it seemed slow, but I acknowledge it was probably there in ten to fifteen minutes; just the overall experience by now was not good.

Price, inexpensive given the brand perception, maybe half what I pay at my favourite Thai restaurant.

We finished the meals quickly as I wanted to leave.

I paid the bill with the young staffer who has not yet been trained in eye contact, warmth or how to make me feel like I even matter to this restaurant.

Q. Which is better value??? The more expensive one or the owner operated smaller one restaurant business.

The cheaper one is far more expensive.

Why?

At free, I would not go back to that place, ever. Too “production line”. No heart, no soul. A bunch of staffers that do not have the passion for the business like an owner will. I didn’t like the experience, didn’t love the food, and didn’t feel like I mattered. I felt like it was “fast food” Thai. I rather think they want to be taken serious as a restaurant, but sorry that didn’t happen to me.

I like to be treated well when dining out, like to feel like I am a valued customer.

By contrast, my favourite restaurant is a “one restaurant show”, owned and run by the owner, a highly credentialed and experienced operator.

But the difference is massive.

1.      The owner greets you personally

2.      You immediately get placed at a clean table

3.      Water out to you instantly

4.      The staff have what I call “hustle”

5.      Food is outstanding

6.      Your glass is never left empty more than a minute

7.      If I arrive 5 minutes early before opening the owner opens and asks us to come in, he cares

8.      We always get a special thank you at the end, sincere

9.      Great ambiance, warm, clean

10.  Even at twice the price, it is better value for basically the same food.

11.  In short the smaller, hands on owner-operator outperforms the big franchise by 100 percent.

So it is in life. A passionate hands on owner operated business CAN compete and often does with the big boys, and in this tight market I feel there is a need and demand for personalised attentive service.

What do you think?

In what is a tough, difficult period in the local property market where we continue to see large gaps in expectations between buyer and seller alike, the ability to get the deal together is often a case of how the negotiation is handled?

I have found recently several sales occur where the dates between first offer and final offer, for the same buyer was anywhere from 7 -90 days.

The large gap in expectations is due to many factors.

1.              Newspapers

2.              Internet articles

3.              Doomsayers predicting the sky falling

4.              General fear and uncertainly

5.              Global factors

6.              Agent has not educated seller properly

7.              Opportunism

8.              Seller and/ or buyer with unreasonable expectations

Sometimes, early offers come in and the seller is yet to understand or accept the reality of the current market. Often, once the seller is certain that they are in fact dealing with what may indeed be “highest fair market value” in many cases sellers will do a deal with a genuine buyer, even though the offer may be lower than what is ideal.

Sometimes buyers might try on a low or cheeky initial offer, only to realise that a property they want might not be available at a certain level, so increase their offer as they realise that they need to pay more in some cases to get what they want. (Not all sellers will take any figure that is offered).

My advice in this market for buyers and sellers. - “Never be the first to walk away.”  Often, good agents need time to "nurse" the offer through as each side comes to terms with what is the actual situation. Rejecting an offer achieves nothing in most cases. I have sold properties to buyers that had offers "not accepted" only to represent and repackage them later in terms agreed by the seller. In other words, the sellers did not walk away first.

Buyers need to understand that many sellers may be “shocked” by some of the market feedback in relation to expectations and need some time to take all of that in, especially new listings. (Despite how much factual information the agent may have provided the seller).

Sellers need to understand that buyers will obviously be in this market empowered and in many cases do not fear prices going up in the short term, and will often try a lower offer to see how genuine the seller is. (Riskiest when the seller sets overly optimistic or aspirational prices).

I believe that if the initial asking price is about right on day one, the seller has the best real chance of a premium sales price as the buyers will know that the seller is very genuine, very serious and therefore will have some fear of loss. They usually then make their first offer a serious one.

Recently we sold 2 properties at the $1M market segment in 44 days and 32 days respectively. This was in my opinion due to, through appropriate motivation by the sellers and the right asking price strategy, caused by being able to communicate to the respective buyers that the sellers were very pragmatic, reasonable and motivated in relation to price. The buyers therefore had no reason to wait and procrastinate waiting for the price to come down.

Net result:

·    Buyers get a good property at a fair price.

·    Sellers get a result and can move on and at what I think it usually a higher price than the poorer cousins (other properties) that sit on the market 3 months to 2 years as some sellers are praying for better times past that are now gone.

Moral of the story, get it right the first time. Price right to sell, and you will. Buyers love it and sellers do to, as they get more and can actually move on.