Property Lawyer/Realtor in Hawkes Bay area

We'll be arriving in Napier in a few days and start looking for a home. We've got three weeks in a local motel, then may do short term apartment rental while looking for a house.

We are wondering if anyone knows of a property lawyer or realtor in the area.  I know someone one here had a girlfriend who was a property lawyer. I bookmarked the info about her, but stupidly only booked it on my desktop computer which is now on the shipping container. Didn't think to bookmark it on the laptop.

We had a nightmare situation with a realtor when we sold our apartment in Toronto. Our agent was a family friend, so he was great, however, the buyer had an agent who seemed to be straight out of hell. Arrogant, aggressive, and totally clueless. We would have walked out on the deal if we hadn't been in such a hurry to sell at that point.  We definitely want to avoid an encounter with another agent like that.

I'm guessing that our best bet would be to first meet with a lawyer, so that we aren't taken for a ride, as we are totally new to the country.

If anyone has any connections, please let us know.

Cheers!

It just proves why Real Estate Agents the world over in general along with insurance agents, used car salemen and politicians make the bottom names on the list of least trusted persons. (Waits for bite)

Have bumped the thread for you.

I don't know if things are different in Canada but we've bought a couple of houses now and didn't engage our own realtor (why would you want to spend any time with those people?). We've only engaged our lawyer at the very last minute to go over the contracts before signing (no need to pay those people more than neccersary).

All properties will be listed on trademe.co.nz (which is like NZ's ebay), we just find the properties that we like on Trademe, call the listing agent and arange a visit (or go to an open home).

No need to hire a realtor, in fact most realtors (we call them real estate agents) will show you around all the properties that their company has listed free of charge as they get a percentage of a sale.

From what I understand in the States and Canada both parties have to have an agent, or if its not a requirement then at least its common. I met up with Steph and Mike at the Westshore Pub last night and explained that to them, and gave them the name of a good listing agent

Thanks!

We looked on TradeMe today, but nothing jumped out at us. Will keep checking though.

I don't know what it's like in the Stares, but yep, in Canada both buyer and seller have their agent. Sometimes one agent will do both, but it's not that common.

Thanks for the listing agents name. We took down her info. We may look for short term rental for a bit because the exchange rate is horrific for us right now. We shall see!

As soon as anything is advertised it will be put on trademe as well as on specialised sites and brochures, etc. Sometimes if a quick sell is required the real estate agent will call people that they know are looking and try and get the property purchased before it's advertised so you should get on the various companies contact lists, beware though they will spam you with real estate listings every week.

You guys know how to complicate things.

No doubt about it!!