Selling off the plan before the building exists

An off the plan buyer commits to a building nobody can walk through yet. They are buying drawings, a finishes schedule and a developer's reputation.

Winning that commitment is a sales problem. Keeping it for two years is a communication problem, and the second one loses more sales.

The schedule of finishes carries the expectation

A render sells the apartment and the finishes schedule defines it. Where the two disagree, the buyer remembers the render.

Keeping renders honest costs a few sales early and prevents settlement disputes later. The second cost is far larger.

Silence during construction loses buyers

A buyer who hears nothing for eight months starts to wonder. Wondering turns into rumour, and rumour turns into a solicitor's letter about a delay.

A quarterly update with photographs costs an hour and holds a contract together. Very few developers do it, and the ones who do settle more easily.

Track each contract's conditions, not just its status

Exchanged does not mean settled. Finance, cooling off and deposit clearance each have to complete before a contract counts for anything.

Our guide to presales covers tracking those conditions, because the lender counts them and the sales report usually does not.

Variations to a buyer's apartment need a process

A buyer asking for different flooring is asking for a change to a building already priced and programmed.

A cut off date, a priced schedule of options and a written acceptance keep that manageable. Without those, individual requests arrive until the day before handover.

Sunset dates cut both ways

A long build increases the chance a sunset date arrives before completion, and a buyer in a softening market may welcome that exit.

Watching those dates as a portfolio, rather than one contract at a time, shows the exposure while something can still be done.

The display suite is a cost, and a decision

A display suite sells better and costs real money in fitout, rent and staffing across the whole campaign.

For a small project the same money often works harder as a strong set of drawings and a walkthrough. The decision deserves a number rather than a habit.

Prepare settlement long before settlement

Forty buyers settling in six weeks generates the same questions forty times, and most of them are answerable in advance.

Our guide to the settlement run covers the pack and the sequence that turns that month into a process.

Buyers also talk to each other, particularly in a single building. One unanswered question becomes forty within a week.

Agents need the information, not just the incentive

An agent who cannot answer a question about the finishes, the strata levies or the completion date loses the buyer in the room.

A single current information pack, reissued whenever something changes, does more for conversion than any commission adjustment.

A single point of contact for questions the agent cannot answer keeps the message consistent. Three people answering the same question three ways reaches a buyer eventually.

Price the stock deliberately

Releasing every apartment at once removes any ability to move price with demand, and it puts the worst stock beside the best.

Staged releases let the pricing respond to what actually sells, which is information nobody has before the first release.

The worst apartments sell last at any price. Releasing a few in each stage prevents a difficult tail at the end.

What to change first

• Renders and the finishes schedule say the same thing
• A quarterly update with photographs goes to every buyer
• Each contract tracks its conditions, not just its status
• Buyer variations have a cut off date and a priced option list
• Sunset dates get watched across the whole portfolio
• Settlement preparation starts months before settlement