Buyers agents

[sabre]

Hi all. Sorry I've taken so long to get back to the group. You see I had a heart attack..........So that kind of made things a little messy. Least now I"m not on so many mind bending drugs, and look to be on the road to much better health. I can let you know how at 43, ip's suddenly are not as important.
I engaged a buyers agent to help buy me a property. The deal we are working on at the moment ...for our PPOR is turning out with this agent ,to be **%#@@@)(+||....we have been gazumped to the tune of $18,000. So not happy with buyers agent. He is meant to be the expert here. SANF has not been good...not being able to contact a lawyer this weekend has been HELL. My buyers agent still wants $6,600 commision but i hired him to help me make money not lose it and lawyers dont work on weekends. Ive already signed the contract and have paid a $1.000 deposit. I thought the total price $405,000 included his commission........ but now this weekend in my druged haze and with the gazumpion on top of the original price I now realize that the buyers agent because of his inaction has cost me at least $18,000. We love this house, I mean being a PPOR we can allow our selves that right, but we do not want to and will not lose this one. We need legal help on this one or maybe someone out there can help?? Any way thats the story so far. Talk about give a man a HEART ATTACK.......... CHEERS SABRE

 

[Aceyducey]

Sabre,

I hope you make a full recovery.

You need to consult with a good solicitor immediately - that buyers' agent either has taken advantage or you did not review the agreement closely enough when signing.

If you are under a high level of stress or on medication you really need to bring in a solicitor before you sign with the agent - it may well be possible to clean up the mess, but avoiding it is a lot less stressful.

Right now IPs may not be so important for you - but think of what happens if medical bills skyrocket & your ability to earn income falls.

It's the stress of working which kept me in a high heart attack probability group which made me focus on passive income, reducing my stress levels & ensuring my family were provided for.

Cheers,

Aceyducey

 

[sabre]

THANKS for your reply and you are right...........cheers sabbre S.N.A.F.U.

 

[sabre]

HI all. of course prices have been altered slightly and i would not mention the BUYERS AGENTS name , but to be fair to him ,he already has a plan b, for this ppor..... he rang me after reading my first post I have always liked dealing with plan b, type people THIS HOUSE WILL BE OURS YEAH /////// CHEERS SABRE S.N.A.F.U. ps my heart is beating and doing well....

 

[MF35]

Good luck sorting out your situation. The only thing I have to say about Buyers Agents is "be careful!". As goes for anything you put your money into. I dealt with one a bit over a year ago roughly and it wasn't a pleasant experience as I lost $1000 and got no IP.

In short I had the pre sign up meeting with them, told them exactly what I wanted and of course they said they could produce. Then signed up and paid up with a $700 refund option at any time on the $1000 paid. They changed their tune and wanted to sell me units in new developments in Sydney or new units/townhouses in western Sydney. This is fine if its what you want but it was the opposite of what I instructed them to search for. Apparently they couldn't find what I wanted after all. Or there wasn't enough in it for them.

I subsequently requested my money back and they stalled for months. I finally got hold of the employee who did the initial sign up stuff with me (at his personal contacts) and he told me he had become suspicous of his employers. He was a young man and stated he was considering advising his friends to invest through his employer and requested his employer take him to see the properties they were recommending to people and supply him with more specifics on the properties before he recommend people sign up. He stated his employers refused and then suggested he resign. After which they sacked him before he put his resignation in. That's the story as he told it anyway. Needless to say this particular business apparently went broke and were liquidated and did not pay back my money. I pursued it with the liquidators of course but there was no money left at the end of the break up as they were apparently not worth much at all to start with.

I made the due dilligence inquires with Fair Trading etc before I used them as well. Trouble is I think they were pretty new in the market at the time and probably weren't in long enough under that name to have any complaints history recorded. I know the names behind the business how ever and will know to steer clear of anything they're associated with. Sorry better not name them for legal reasons.

Moral of the story for me is that I will NEVER PAY MONEY UP FRONT for such services from people or businesses that don't have a proven track record with me. I'm highly unlikely to ever use a Buyers Agent as a result of this experience.

That said I understand there may be legitimate professional and effective Buyers Agents out there who do assist investors greatly. Once bitten however twice shy! I'd now only use one who got paid on the completion of a deal acceptable to me, if I used one at all.

My $1000 dollars worth! and my personal opinion only.

MF

 

[Kristine..]

Hi Sabre

Glad to hear your heart is recovering.

However, perhaps your first post was a little presumptive of the situation, as your later post confirmed.

Congratulations on the purchase of your 'Dream Home'.

It is easy, particularly if we are gazumped, to feel angry at everyone, especially the person who has actually been doing the work for us. I have lost out on a number of properties over the years, simply because I didn't offer enough money to buy them!

Unfortunately, even though the story has a happy ending, your first reaction was 'rotten, money hungry, incompetent agent'. As a (previous) buyer's agent myself, I could only do what I had been instructed to do. If my client said 'offer $100,000' then that was all that I could offer. I could only advise and discuss the feedback from the vendor's agent. If my client was adamant that they were not paying any more, and the property sold for $101,000, whose responsibility is that?

MF35, my agency always asked for a rebateable deposit on services. After all, as buyer's agents we did not have listed stock, all our work was on a personal basis and often incurred significant phone and travel expense. There is no difference to paying the advertising up front when you list a property for sale, than to paying a reasonable amount (and $750 when you are looking for property is very reasonable) to cover the agent's out of pocket expenses.

After all, the actual commission is only payable when a deal is made. I frequently had prospective clients refuse to give me an exclusive authority, arguing that they shouldn't have to pay me if they found the property themselves. Sure, but what if I found the property which ideally suited their criteria, then they decided not to proceed because they chose to take a holiday instead, or interest rates went up, or whatever?

If we expect people to devote their time and expertise on our behalf, we should reciprocate by behaving professionally ourselves.

When signing any authority, it is important to read it, maybe even overnight, and to understand the circumstances of responsibility and liability.

If the authority says 'commission is payable when the first written offer is made' and you agree to that, you are bound by that. If the authority says 'commission is payable when the sale becomes unconditional' then that is the deal. Remember, buyer's agents do not (usually) have trust accounts. They have to invoice the client separately and then wait for payment. Only vendor's agents receive the deposit into their trust account then do an account sale, forwarding the balance of deposit to the vendor.

Licensed Estate Agents acting on behalf of buyers - and vendors - have been around for a long time, although buyer's agents have only emerged as a separately profiled group for about the last five years.

A licensed Agent may only receive commission from one side of the deal, unless knowingly agreed to by both parties in advance.

Marketing companies are not buyer's agents.

Sabre, I hope you are very happy - and healthy - in your new home.

Cheers

Kristine

 

[MF35]

I don't doubt that there are Buyers Agents out there who do things properly. Maybe I'm a bit jaded after my experience, and by the fact that through my occupation (police) I know that there is alot higher percentage of people out there who either engage in criminal activity, or at the very least unethical business practices.

What I was unhappy about wasn't so much that the entity I dealt with asked for an up front deposit. But more that they lied to me about what they could actually acheive in order to get my money. They were flogging new developments not sourcing property to their clients requirements. Then didn't pay the rebate on the deposit and stalled on the lot knowing they were going broke. So in short they ripped me off. I did the basic due dillegence on them and in the end would have had a civil case against them, and depending on what a warrant on their records showed, possibly even fraud offences in my humble opinion.

The point I make is that you simply can't trust that people are doing the right thing. And some industries lend themselves to exploitation by pathetic human beings. Real Estate in general, as do alot of different industries and occupations, is just one. I'm not saying the whole real estate industry are of this quality. Only that it's one of many where people of that quality can thrive.

Now I simply wont use anyone for any such service unless I had someone I trusted personally vouch for them. If I had to do all the background work to make sure they were'nt ripping me off I may as well do it myself in the first place. Just my opinion. I knew I only had very limited exposure to the deal and was keen to see how it all worked with Buyers Agents. Part of the reason I did it was to check out if they could back up there claims as I was sceptical to start with. The only way I would know for sure I figured was to use one. The ones I used just happened to not be worth a pinch of sh*t! Only problem was I expect only to lose $250 for the experience / education. Not the full $1000.

Again I acknowledge this is not necessarily indicative of the whole industry and I believe a good Buyers Agent could be a very valuable service.

This is simply my opinion and those that don't exercise caution will no doubt suffer similar experiences or worse. I see what happens to people who blindly trust that people will do the right thing all the time. They get ripped off. I'm just saying trying and make sure you're not one of them by being very careful.

I think everyone gets my point.

MF

 

[Jamie]

Hi MF35,

Can I take a stab in the dark and guess the name of the company?

Was it called...
PR_P_RT_
B_Y_RS
N_TW_RK?

Was the principal's name...
M_RK
P_RD_?

(Ive left room for you to buy a vowel... though not sure you'll need to)

Best wishes,

Jamie

 

[sabre]

hi all .just geting back ,to a few posts ........... MF35 .all I can say is yes , yes ,yes now with legal advise cant say any more !!!!! KRISINE THIS IS A PPOR and we will own it!!!!!!!!!!!!! again, please read above.! but krisine this is no where near our dream home . my lawyer is just going to keep every thing fair Iam hoping I will not even need his or her services... CHEERS SABRE S.N.A.F.U

 

[sabre]

HI jamie you have me really ????????? please email ME SO i can know what other buyers agents are up to !!!!!!! CHEERS SABRE S.N.A.F.U

 

[Jamie]

Hi sabre,

No real need to email you... I think we are talking about 2 different things here...

As far as I know, you used Scott McGeever as your Buyers Agent -he is a member of the forum and has contributed to much appreciation previously (as "buyerforhire" - although we havent seen him for a while).

http://www.somersoft.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=7939


My point was more a response to MF35's post... A number of people have had similar problems with the particular buyers agent I alluded to previously having disappeared from the radar.

Hope this clears up a few things,

Best wishes,

Jamie

 

[sabre]

TA... but, no, yes. or no. !!!!!!!!!!!!! SABRE S.N.A.F.U

 

[sabre]

HI. Jamie my last post was very late last night, and did not even make sence to me this morning.What I meant to say,is I can not .coment at this time , Call it if you will ,because of leagle advise.CHEERS SABRE S.N.A.F.U

 

[Ross Sondergeld]

WARNING - The good or the bad...

Hi,



At present, there are many "pretend" buyer agents in the market.

And if you read the Australian Property Investor (API) magazine... then as a general rule... avoid ALL buyer agents !!!

Bargains... wholesale... it's all a load of @#$%.

Sure buyer agents can do a good job... like search and find... provide anonymity... straight negotiation... etc.

But make sure you review the people and the service.

And yes... I'm a buyer agent.



Ross Sondergeld
Ross for Property

 

[buyerforhire]

I am still about........

Although I have not contributed for a while I still read the posts now and then.

Thanks for outing me Jamie, although I have nothing to hide, that I know of!

Sabre's saga may prove to be interesting reading as a case study, what do you think Terry?

Scott.

 

[strangep]

Hi all

If everyone was up for it I'd love to see a case study detailing what went right and what went wrong.

I've used buyer's agents in the past and will use them again in the future because of the overseas situation, so I'd like to learn a bit more about the problems that can arise. I think it would be of benefit to a lot of people.

Cheers

Paul

 

[sabre]

HIall .well it seems plan 2 failed and as they say, in the air force COLD ,NO,JOY. find out more to day from legals .. cheers for now. sabre S.N.A.F.U.

 

[sabre]

HI ALL. well as of today we own the house he,he,he !!!!! our very own PPOR in sunny QLD YEAH YEAH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FIG TREE POCKET here we come cheers sabre s.n.a.f.u.

 

[sabre]

HI ALL .So much!!!! i wish i could tell you !!! it now becomes legal. On the17/7/2003 Thursday my BUYER AGENT Choose to ignor or in complete ignorance, just send me a bill hoping that i like many others he has @#$%$#@@!!%%%% off!!!!. would just pay up and go away ,we have told him over the phone , (NOT HAPPY JAN ) how clear do we have to make this HE has by the way genrously dropped $2.200 off his total .on legal advise the $5.500 he still wants is NEVER going to happen !!!, the winners will be the lawers!!!!! cheers sabre s.n.a.f.u.

 

[sabre]

HI ALL just a quick update,because of legal reasons and time lawers spend doing what they do.I can and will be placing this buyers agent on the NOT GOOD ENOUGH web site and they can take over.this is at this time all iam allowed to say. Hoping for a good outcome cheers sabre s.n.a.f.u.