Any see the Nathan Birch interview with Kochie on Sunrise?

Sadly, my brother in law's mate was charged $10k for a property under $250k :(

That said, I think some buyers agents provide fantastic value for the service they provide (eg paying $5-8k for properties on something that is worth $500k+, run around looking at properties and negotiating on your behalf), paying $10k for <$250k is just taking advantage of people.

My assumption would be that the amount of work involved in sourcing a property is the same regardless of cost ....

Cliff
 
My assumption would be that the amount of work involved in sourcing a property is the same regardless of cost ....
Cliff

That's a pretty fair assumption Cliff.

In fact the amount of work is ofter larger for a lower priced property, due to the fact that they can be often in poor condition, so we have to look at a lot more of them to find something decent. They are also in high demand (so lots of competition from tradies and FHB'ers, who will often overpay when we won't). We often find they don't get advertised either - so we are always working the agent networks harder than usual.
 
My assumption would be that the amount of work involved in sourcing a property is the same regardless of cost ....

Cliff

I think it would depend on the brief.

To be extreme:
Get me a 4+ bed house in Ascot for under 5 mil. Get me a property in Logan yielding greater than 9.75% for under 250k. These two might involve varying degrees of work.

I have no experience of BAs, but I assume their clients mostly fall into two broad categories:
1. Clients who want a middleman. Probably inexperienced. Just want to know that everything has been done correctly. Don't want to get ripped off by emotions etc. Most likely to be a PPOR. Perhaps super time poor or geographically absent.
2. Clients who think by paying a BA they'll get a bargain. A super bargain even. I can imagine these are BAs nightmare. Most likely to be an IP and most likely to be at the lower price end.

I'd be keen to hear from BAs if these assumptions are even remotely correct.
 
It should not be about what he charges it should be about the value a client receives

Sure, but he value is most often measured in dollars. Does that mean that a client should be charged more because they may 'value' the advice more? Of course not.

I wonder where this sort of belief comes from....

I do also run a property business mainly out of the United states.

Aaah, there we go.

So you're not here to talk about subjective notions like 'value', you're here to either, a) promote your business, or b) defend the integrity of people who charge 4% of the purchase price to find a house supposedly under market.

Probably a bit of both.

But hey, if I want a bullet riddled crack den in Detroit for less than market value, I'll give you a call.
 
I think it would depend on the brief.

To be extreme:
Get me a 4+ bed house in Ascot for under 5 mil. Get me a property in Logan yielding greater than 9.75% for under 250k. These two might involve varying degrees of work.

I have no experience of BAs, but I assume their clients mostly fall into two broad categories:
1. Clients who want a middleman. Probably inexperienced. Just want to know that everything has been done correctly. Don't want to get ripped off by emotions etc. Most likely to be a PPOR. Perhaps super time poor or geographically absent.
2. Clients who think by paying a BA they'll get a bargain. A super bargain even. I can imagine these are BAs nightmare. Most likely to be an IP and most likely to be at the lower price end.

I'd be keen to hear from BAs if these assumptions are even remotely correct.

Generally agree, but there's definitely a 3rd category.

3. Clients who value the BAs time and effort. I used a BA for my most recent interstate purchase. I identified in broad terms where I wanted to buy based on various reasons why I saw value in that area. I still don't know the local market in more specific detail so I engaged a BA. It would have cost me more in time, effort and travel costs than the BAs fee for me to get the deal done with the due dilligence I wanted. The BA is far more experienced in the local market, and is a far better negotiator than I could ever hope to be.

BAs can't always purchase under market value, especially when the market is hot. They can save time, money and effort that you might otherwise pay to evaluate the market and negotiate a deal. They're also less likely to get you into a bad deal.

That said, I wouldn't engage a BA to buy a property in the same street I live in. In this case it's unlikely they'd add value over what I can do myself.
 
It's fairly irrelevant what a BA or anyone else providing goods or services charges. What things cost depends on 2 things:

1. The actual cost to provide the goods or service. If it costs more to provide a good or service than you can charge, it's not profitable and you wouldn't do it.

2. What the market will bear. If every BA is charging $10k and you've got people beating down the door for your service, then you should be charging $10k.

In VIC I pay about 6% for my property management plus some other fees. I QLD everyone changes about 8% plus similar fees. From what I can tell, they're doing the about same work. I can't manage a property in QLD myself and I can't find a suitable service for 6%, so I pay the higher asking price.

I can also do the property management in VIC myself, but I pay 6% because someone else can do it better than I would (I discovered a long time ago I'm not good at property management).
 
End of the day, BA's are just sales people trying to sell what they offer

Like all services you pay for, some people feel like they get value and some feel ripped off

and with all things, if you don't do your due diligence and get ripped off, its really your own fault as nobody is pointing a gun in your face to sign up to binvested or any other buyers agency

There is nothing Nathan Birch does you can't do yourself. And there is nothing BA's have access to that you can't have access to with the right knowledge. Do a search on the forums on his old posts, watch his youtube videos etc and pretty soon you'll get a general idea on what he did in the early days/strategy to grow his portfolio with very specific examples and its really not that hard at all.

And for those who claim they have no time to do it themselves, would you suddenly have the time if someone gave you $10k (or more if you're buying multiple?)
 
And for those who claim they have no time to do it themselves, would you suddenly have the time if someone gave you $10k (or more if you're buying multiple?)

If you earn $50k a year then you probably would find the time. If you earn $200k a year you might not.

What if you're not a very good negotiator and your understanding of the market you're purchasing in is limited? Would you prefer to pay fair market value at the cost of $10k in services, or pay 10% to 20% extra and keep the $10k?
 
If you earn $50k a year then you probably would find the time. If you earn $200k a year you might not.

What if you're not a very good negotiator and your understanding of the market you're purchasing in is limited? Would you prefer to pay fair market value at the cost of $10k in services, or pay 10% to 20% extra and keep the $10k?

I guess you do what most successful people do and learn?

Paying someone to do things for you will only get you so far. How can you grow yourself as an investor or in anything else unless you do it yourself and learn the ins and outs of all facets, financing, property managing, knowing what constitutes a good deal and how to position yourself to source these deals yourself, build the right relationships and educate yourself to take you to the next stages of investing?

As a result, I would prefer to pay fair market value or below market value AND keep my $10k thank you very much.
 
Fair points but you're ignoring one major habit of successful people...

They outsource various functions and pay others to do it for them.

There's lots of things I can do just as well as my personal assistant, sometimes even better. I pay $27 per hour so I can concentrate on the things that earn $200 an hour.

The truly successful investors and business people understand this.

You can also do your own conveyancing and save $1000.
 
End of the day, BA's are just sales people trying to sell what they offer

Like all services you pay for, some people feel like they get value and some feel ripped off

and with all things, if you don't do your due diligence and get ripped off, its really your own fault as nobody is pointing a gun in your face to sign up to binvested or any other buyers agency

There is nothing Nathan Birch does you can't do yourself. And there is nothing BA's have access to that you can't have access to with the right knowledge. Do a search on the forums on his old posts, watch his youtube videos etc and pretty soon you'll get a general idea on what he did in the early days/strategy to grow his portfolio with very specific examples and its really not that hard at all.

And for those who claim they have no time to do it themselves, would you suddenly have the time if someone gave you $10k (or more if you're buying multiple?)

Thats just a terrible assumption....
In every occupation theres always people who do good and others who don't care.

I've worked with a BA before and I can tell you my experience was exactly the opposite. They took the time to listen and went through options with me, went to property inspections with me, checked under the house, pointed stuff to look out for, walked me through the contract etc.

Then there are other BA's who obviously treat you like crap but that doesn't mean all. The ones that post on these forums seem rather genuine and helpful.

Also just because they posted on somersoft before it means its ok for them to rip people off now? WTF? Hell no. I've read through Nathan's posts before, they really don't reveal much, more of a teaser. The important stuff he keeps to himself.

I also agree that there is nothing Nathan does that one can't do themselves, just some people lack courage and look for support... unfortunately Nathan's company has chosen to exploit that.

Lastly, its not just time poor people who employ a Buyers agents, its those who understand the the simple concept, jack of all trades, master of none as well as the fact that time with their family is worth more than 10k. Remember, this is somersoft where people actually enjoy looking at property, the rest of world hates driving around from inspection to inspection, looking up domain, they simply would rather do other things with their time.
 
There's lots of things I can do just as well as my personal assistant, sometimes even better. I pay $27 per hour so I can concentrate on the things that earn $200 an hour.
.

You are paid too well ;)

But I agree to an extent with what you're saying. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
 
Fair points but you're ignoring one major habit of successful people...

They outsource various functions and pay others to do it for them.

There's lots of things I can do just as well as my personal assistant, sometimes even better. I pay $27 per hour so I can concentrate on the things that earn $200 an hour.

The truly successful investors and business people understand this.

You can also do your own conveyancing and save $1000.

Apples and Oranges

Truly successful people pick and choose what they outsource and at a gradual pace where they can afford not to sweat the small stuff as business/portfolio grows

Professional conveyancing takes years of education and practice and plus you wouldn't gain much knowledge in doing it yourself from a property investment perspective

General admin duties of a PA - well that pretty much speaks for itself

But as an aspiring property investor, don't you think its pretty important to learn how to negotiate and not pay too much for properties?
 
Apples and Oranges


But as an aspiring property investor, don't you think its pretty important to learn how to negotiate and not pay too much for properties?

More important to understand your market, in a very hot market that is rising quickly sometimes you pay more to eliminate your competition and make it up at the end.
 
That's a pretty fair assumption Cliff.

In fact the amount of work is ofter larger for a lower priced property, due to the fact that they can be often in poor condition, so we have to look at a lot more of them to find something decent. They are also in high demand (so lots of competition from tradies and FHB'ers, who will often overpay when we won't). We often find they don't get advertised either - so we are always working the agent networks harder than usual.

Talking about lower priced property, I was curious if its legal for a BA to charge a higher fee to source a property when their fee is more than the sellers agent is receiving? Or is the fee simply an agreement between client and agent?
 
But as an aspiring property investor, don't you think its pretty important to learn how to negotiate and not pay too much for properties?

Of course it's important to learn how to negotiate as a property investor. Still when you consider that a BA looks and negotiates on property all day every day, a BA is likely to be a better negotiator and have a better understanding of their local market that the average investor ever would have.

I use BAs for purchases in areas I'm not familiar with. For my local area I do the work myself, but I'm in the fortunate position where I've got a few good friends who are BAs, so I also informally run it by them to get their opinion.


Talking about lower priced property, I was curious if its legal for a BA to charge a higher fee to source a property when their fee is more than the sellers agent is receiving? Or is the fee simply an agreement between client and agent?

Why wouldn't it be legal? A BA can charge whatever they want. The selling agent can also charge whatever they want. If you don't want to pay that amount then you negotiate or go elsewhere.
 
Of course it's important to learn how to negotiate as a property investor. Still when you consider that a BA looks and negotiates on property all day every day, a BA is likely to be a better negotiator and have a better understanding of their local market that the average investor ever would have.


You'd like to think this but most BA's I know work coincidentally anywhere a client is looking, not just "their local market". And I question any naive "investor" who is silly enough to purchase in an area where he/she has a lack of understanding, not educate themselves, but instead completely rely on somebody elses opinion (and paying a hefty sum for it!)

Anyway, the argument is pointless. As I said, some people see value, and others see scam

And again, a BA has nothing a regular purchaser doesn't have access to.
 
I have looked into using a BA (but have not) and I think there are two things they have access to that I do not.

They have immediate access to a existing network of contacts and the ability to co-ordinate with other buyers to do a "group buy" - for example an entire apartment block.

Sure, I could in theory build up my own contacts and networks and do both these things, but they are not something I have access to right now.

Are these worth paying for? In the right situation, for sure.
 
Birch might be successful but I would never do business with his company. His staff member 'Stef' has offended numerous people including myself on social media after they asked Nathan to back up his claims on property wealth claims. I advised Nathan with an email on the abuse I copped after asking a simple question on the maths of what was presented but got no reply.

I've also seen other people abused by 'Stef' on Facebook for asking innocent questions. The arrogance of such treatment is never acceptable no matter how successful you are.
 
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