Before you help them offer

A short checklist for the parent who is helping, written for the week before an offer. None of it needs you to know the suburb, and none of it tells you what the offer should be; it tells you where the evidence is, so the family is arguing about facts rather than feelings. Every item can be done from a phone.

The three checks

1. Check what it last sold for, and when. It is on the public record, and most buyers never look it up. The price paid and the time held say more about the vendor's position than anything in the campaign: a vendor who bought recently has costs to recover; one who has held for decades has room the guide will not show you. The listing's history section on the portal is the first place to look; the report carries the record and what it implies.
2. Check how long it has been on the market, and what the price has done. The first listing date, any relisting, any price change, and whether it has been withdrawn before. A long campaign in a fast market, or a "new price", each says something the photos do not. The free listing check reads the campaign's wording and its price format off the listing in about a minute.
3. Check what recorded sales of comparable homes support. The price guide is the agent's figure, set for the vendor; in some states it is regulated, in most it is not (what "offers over" means in your state). The comparables are the evidence. Ask the agent which sales the guide rests on, and read how a fair-value range is built so you know what to look for in the answer. The report shows its comparables in full.

What the family commonly keeps to itself

4. Keep the budget, the pre-approval amount and any deadline between you. What is said at an open home goes to the vendor; that is the agent's job. The number you would stop at is decided at home, written down, and not discussed at the door.

Who answers the other questions

5. Send the money questions to the right professional before the offer, not after. How a gift affects the age pension, what going guarantor puts at risk, how to treat the other children, what happens if the couple separates: each has a named professional on the family-help pages, and the conversation checklist lists the questions both generations answer first.

Before Saturday

6. Run the free check on the listing, and send it to the other generation. Then, if the property is a serious one, the report puts the fair-value range, the vendor read and the three numbers in writing before the open home rather than after the offer.