Buying/selling house

QV do a report - it does cost, but it gives you an idea. They are at this website. If you search the address, it will bring it up and you can choose what report you want - it's the Local Sales one, from $16.95, that you want. It includes a map of the area with recent sales and details of the properties sold (size, what it's constructed of, when it was built, the sale price, the capital valuation, when it was sold etc)...it lists up to 10 properties in the neighbourhood.

LIM is usually around $200ish, lawyers fees for a sale and purchase could be around $2,000, the agent fees will be a percentage of your sale price...from memory, in Hamilton it was $500 plus 4% of the sale price up to $200,000 (or possibly $300,000) and then 2% of the sale price over that, plus GST.

Valuations are usually around $500, I'm not sure on builder's report costs though.

I hope this helps a little...I used to work for a solicitor in Hamilton as a legal executive, so I did all of the house sales and purchases and that kind of thing. It was 2 1/2 years ago though!!

a lot of real estate agents have lists of property recently sold and for how much too. They provide the info when they come over to sell the house.

Regarding the agent's percentage, don't just accept what they tell you, negotiate hard! Real estate agents really want sales at the moment, and your house is your hard earned asset.

Good luck!

Definately shop around for solicitors.

I had quotes that varied by $500!

Thank you ladies for the help! Gives me a good idea of what we can expect.
We'll get a couple of real estate agents in to do appraisals.
It's a scary thought selling our house as we just have no idea what it will go for. I got one of those sales reports from QV and all have gone for around the capital value, which if we sold this place for the capital value and got the other place around their capital value then we would be able to afford it.