'Evening all,
It's been quite awhile since I last posted here. I still check in daily though (it's a long-standing addiction now) and just wanted to make sure that the correct facts were being discussed on this one, if I may.
D.T is correct in that I am not involved in the accounting firm anymore. The how/why of that is another story but in the meantime I've been helping my wife (Lil_Skater here) with Qura and using my property experience and networks in helping a small number of clients recently with their own purchases and strategies.
We are currently helping only two clients with making a purchase. I personally never take on more than two at once to ensure that I am not stretched too thinly. They also must have substantially different targets to ensure that they are not competing with each other and I don't have to "choose" who is presented with each property!
So, one of those clients is a "standard" investment purchase by a local investor with a much lower budget than Dex's friend. That deal is currently on hold until after Christmas.
The other is based overseas, but I want to stress that they are not looking in the $3m - $3.2m budget and nor were they quoted the fee mentioned in this thread.
However even with that said;
In general terms a PPOR purchase, and particularly as the budget increases, does have an added "degree of difficulty" compared to an objective investment purchase and so yes, the fee can be a little higher. We always quote a fixed amount to ensure that everyone is happy before we even start - and do not operate on a percentage at all.
For whatever it might be worth, after the first week or two of the search most of the homes that I have been inspecting have been "off market". Not many new listings become publicly available at their price range in the lead-up to Christmas.
I am not comfortable sharing much more than the above on this case - particularly if you actually know the client in question, Dex. All the same, I do hope that my comments have helped to clarify some aspects of this thread a little.