We’re back with Kieran Clair and Kevin Turner as they discuss interesting stories in the real estate industry this week.
Our first story features the world’s first cryptocurrency auction, and it’s happening right on our shores. LJ Hooker, one of Australia’s oldest and most established brands, is preparing to host the historic auction. They will work with auctioneer James Pratt and blockchain company NuYen.
A live auctioneer will take bids on the house and viewers can watch the LIVE auction take place when they log in. Bids will be called in cryptocurrency, but their amounts will be converted to AUD and USD once displayed on the screen. Payments can be made in both Bitcoin (BTC) and Binance Coin (BNB).
The auction has already attracted attention worldwide from buyers in the US, Canada, China, and Australia so NuYen is confident the auction will be a success.
Are you interested to see how it will all turn out and what it could mean for the future? Because we definitely are.
Now have you ever thought that a bed for your car could cost as much as a roof over your head? Because our second story is about how the average cost of parking space in London has hit £219,000.
Drivers in the UK capital pay an average of £219,000 for a spot to park their car, which is almost enough to buy a home in the rest of the country, where the average house price is £230,776. There are actually 176 areas in the UK where buying a home costs less than a London parking space.
A standard parking space is 7.9ft by 16ft, rounding to about £1,731.60 per sq ft for a parking space in London. That’s on par with homes in Kensington and Chelsea.
Parking mad, isn’t it?
We see and hear a lot about pool parties in American media, so have you ever wondered what the added selling value of a pool is in the US?
Swimming pools are worth more in Los Angeles than they are in any other major U.S. metro area. It is followed by Austin and Orange County, California, where a pool adds more than $50,000 to a typical home’s value. That’s to be expected given LA’s hot climate. People use their pools all year round and they go out a lot.
The story is different in Phoenix, where a pool can even detract from a home’s value. Homeowners don’t want to pay for the maintenance of a pool so they prefer not to have one.
There are many factors as to how a pool affects the selling price of a home. And one of the most common questions valuers ask is “If I put in a pool, how much will it add to the value when or if I sell it?”
Our answer to that is probably not as much as it cost to put one in, but if you want a pool and you’re going to live there for 20 years, get one. It’s more about the quality of life that you’re going to get from it rather than your property’s sale price.
For our fourth story, we’re going to go the short-term route. Airbnb has bought HotelTonight, an app for finding hotel rooms at a discount. This move puts the traveller’s favorite on more squarely in competition with large travel sites like Expedia and Priceline.
Last-minute booking is HotelTonight’s sweet spot, making it perfect for business travellers who just need a central place to stay in for a short amount of time.
Our last story is definitely not the least as it deals with making the impossible, possible — a cliche sentiment that you’ve probably heard a thousand times, but in this exclusive and elite site, it might just be true; well worth the $42,000 a week rent.
Superstars, celebrities, and other high-profile personalities are renting magnificent mega million Aussie homes from elite sites like Luxico. It even comes with a personal concierge where every request–no matter how wacky– is taken seriously.
“From securing celebrity chefs to cook dinner, to personal whale watching sessions and surf lessons with a professional surfer, nothing was too much,” says Luxico co-founder Alexandra Ormerod.
Several other unusual requests include being served pastries and sourdough bread with a very specific type of French hot chocolate at exactly 7am, converting three bedrooms into a massive closet for a visiting pop star, portable Jacuzzis, high-spec gym equipment, and Steinway pianos.
This week’s bonus
The simple, if pricey, open-faced Avocado sandwich has become a roundly mocked symbol of millennial privilege ever since an Australian real estate mogul criticised the younger generation for "buying smashed avocado for $19 and four coffees at $4 each" instead of saving up for a home. According to The Washington Post, it was believed that chef Bill Granger may have been the first person to put avocado toast on his café menu in 1993. But - as a publication in the USA pointed out this week - assuming you eat avocado toast daily you'd have to forgo the meal for more than a decade to save 20 percent down on the average Portland area home. The median home value in Portland is $425,700. The boys give their slant on this and…..
Is this the future of real estate marketing? Videos that accompany real estate listings are not uncommon these days, but Kieran and Kevin tell you how one agent has taken it a step further using actors to pose as a family to illustrate how the house can be lived in. Hear what they have to say about that and watch the video here:https://youtu.be/AKn-_WaS6gE
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