Hi ,
This week I’d like to share a story with you to highlight a few cautionary details about underquoting and dealing with Real Estate Agents.
However, before I do, I'd like to take this opportunity to share that as of 11.59pm Friday 17 September, open for inspections will resume by appointment only. To ensure they are COVIDSafe, only people from the same household can attend the inspection appointment and
the real estate agent must remain outside during the inspection.
We are very excited and are looking forward to the surge of activity this first weekend of open for inspections.
Now back to our tale of two properties! Our clients were interested in two properties – a Zoom viewing of an off market home on the Friday and another, which was being auctioned on the Saturday.
We ended up purchasing the off market property for our clients at a very fair and reasonable market price, without the “emotional tax” that many buyers end up paying at auction. Given the current market conditions where in-person inspections and live auctions remain banned, buyers are becoming more and more concerned about when/if
they will be able to purchase a home. It is therefore, understandable that there are a lot of emotions at play. By engaging a Buyer’s Advocate, you take this emotional element out of the equation. We keep you focussed on the end game.
Thanks to the established relationship we had with the selling Agent on Friday, he knew we were serious and who he was dealing with – a seasoned professional able to line the ducks up quickly to make the deal happen, whilst still protecting the interests of our clients.
At 10.00am on Friday morning, we undertook a Zoom video walk through with the Agent. There was only one other interested party who was also using an Advocate. Going off market often gives us the advantage of avoiding a competitive bidding war, which can’t be said about auctions. Following the Zoom walk through, our clients were quite keen
and we weighed up their options about putting in an offer for this property or attending the Zoom auction on the Saturday.
We decided to put in an offer. The other party and their Advocate were advised of our bid and while they dragged their feet making a decision, we acted swiftly and bought our clients their perfect home for a perfect price by 8.30pm that evening!
On the other hand, had we gone down the Saturday auction path for the property our clients were originally interested in, they would most certainly have missed out as it sold for $280,000 above the Agent’s top of price guide. This was a combination of:
- gross underquoting by the selling Agent (at least $160,000 of the price achieved was due to underquoting); and
- buyer competition. Emotion clearly kicked in here for buyers to take this property to the price it sold for.
Prior to the auction, there were a couple of red flags that had gone up for us.
- It was clear the property was being underquoted. None of the comparable sales provided by the Agent in their Statement of Information were at all accurate and our own due diligence, which we always undertake, also confirmed this.
- It was also concerning that the Vendors had paid for and provided their own building and pest inspections. This can be considered somewhat of a conflict of interest. It is not ideal to rely on reports, which have been provided by the Seller. The best option is to have an independent inspection performed by someone who has your best
interests at heart.
If you are still wondering why you’d work with us, let me put it in these terms… How would you feel if you viewed a home at 10.00am tomorrow and by 8.30pm that evening, you had secured your home? That’s right, you would own a home within 24 hours! No more scouring the internet. No more attending Zoom walk throughs. Just peace and
contentment knowing that you had finally found your new home. We are here to make it easy for you and help relieve the stress, especially in these difficult times.
If you'd like to chat about your options, feel free to get in touch with us.
