KEY POINTS:
Financial adviser Martin Hawes says he's still vaguely surprised at how emotional the property market can be.
Vendors divulge unnecessary information to their agents, while buyers "nod, smile and agree" with an agent without pointing out the drawbacks of a house, putting themselves at a negotiating disadvantage.
But Hawes agrees haggling is something that "goes against our national psyche".
"I think this is a small country and the chances of meeting that real estate agent you may not have been very nice to are fairly high and so we tend to agree, even when we are thinking, 'This is a load of old cobblers.'
"But it is a commercial transaction where for a lot of people there's a lot of money at stake."
Hawes, from Queenstown, is one of three presenters in the television show The School of Home Truths and author of a book of the same name.
His expertise is self-taught. After leaving university, Hawes taught school for a couple of years and then went into business, importing and manufacturing goods.
It was the late 70s and he became intrigued with property and the sharemarket. Soon people were asking him to give seminars.
His best-seller was a book on family trusts which has sold more than 100,000 copies in the past decade.
Bemused by his success, Hawes tries to explain: "I've always had an ability to explain relatively difficult topics in simple, easy to understand language and I think that's my number one skill."
The School of Home Truths TV venture is something new for Hawes. He has done a lot of television interviews and once fronted a series of sponsored vignettes of financial advice, but has never taken part in a show.
However, the concept of sharing the presenting role with psychologist Marc Wilson and ex-real estate agent/business ethics campaigner Mark Jenman sparked his interest.
He was especially drawn to the idea of helping people to sort their finances out "and ... sort their lives out".
"Because money and finance and property and the likes have no real meaning other than to try and give people better lives."
Home ownership may not be the road to riches but it is "hard-wired" into New Zealanders and the current property boom has underlined it.
While he stresses that owning a home is good sense, secondary property investment can mean money woes or missed opportunities elsewhere.
"One day the property boom we're currently experiencing will turn down and I can fairly confidently predict there will be tears."
Getting the most for one's property is a key point in Hawes' book.
Using a study of 100,000 house sales in Chicago, Hawes found that people who left their houses on the market for a little longer than most got more on their asking price, around $10,000 in New Zealand dollar terms.
New Zealanders are, he surmises, usually in a hurry to sell their houses and nationally could be losing about a billion dollars a year because of it.
The television show shows 13 people in the process of buying or selling a house the tricks of the trade.
It includes secret footage of some estate agents behaving badly, being "slobbish" or even lying.
One gave the "quote lie" - suggesting to a client they would get a very high price just to get the listing.
"The problem with that is the house tends to go on the market at too high a price, it doesn't sell and therefore it goes stale in the market. And people then just have to drop the price until they end up selling it for less than what it was worth."
Hawes strongly advises vendors to get a registered, independent valuation and list at a realistic price.
But he still recommends most people use a real estate agent: a good agent "should be able to add value to the process".
- NZPA
