How to respond to agent??

Hello,

I've been reading these forum for a while and finding them very informative. :)
However, I'm a bit of a newbie at buying/selling RE and can't find anything that quite matches my query and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice.

I'm on a search for my next PPOR, and have rung up a few real estate agents enquiring about property.

However, not quite sure how to respond when asked "what's your budget?" or "how much can you afford?"

The conversation usually goes something like this:

Me: Hi just wondering what price range the owners are expecting for XX property (could be auction or no price listed)
REA: What's your budget?
Me: Uuum, the low 600's.

:eek:

I feel like I'm giving away some of my negotiating power by telling them what I can afford. But at the same time I don't want to tell them that it's none of their business!

How do you usually respond to a question like that? How do you make sure you keep your cards close to your chest but at the same time keep the REA on side?

Thanks :)
 
I always reply with "that depends". You don't have to tell them what it depends on.

Or you could say, "the cheapest I can pay for what I want".
 
Having just done this yesterday, the REA is fully aware that I can't afford anything at all unless they sell my house or I rent it out :)

Which isn't stopping me looking at places and trying to talk the price down.
 
Me: Hi just wondering what price range the owners are expecting for XX property (could be auction or no price listed)

Wrony, wrong, wrong :p

You already know (or you should already know) what this property is worth.
Don't ask those kinds of questions and you won't come across as a novice. Then the agent won't feel obliged to "qualify you".

You can be "looking in the $500-600K range" - that's a decent enough response - it gives nothing away if you are looking at $550K houses for instance.

You can also see on realestate.com.au what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......buy looking at View Page Source (after a right mouse click on the advert), then Edit, Find, price (hit 'next' a few times to find it)
 
If you are specific about what you are looking for and come across as someone who knows what they want, you are more likeley to get it.
 
You can also see on realestate.com.au what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......buy looking at View Page Source (after a right mouse click on the advert), then Edit, Find, price (hit 'next' a few times to find it)

Using HTML against them - I love it!

Cheers
Greg
 
You can also see on realestate.com.au what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......buy looking at View Page Source (after a right mouse click on the advert), then Edit, Find, price (hit 'next' a few times to find it)
You can also find "adprice" for it to come up first time
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I do like the "it depends" lines as well. :D It's all food for thought.

Hmm, yep, you're right Propertunity, that does make me come across as a novice. That's my problem, I shouldn't have to ask the REA about price.

And brilliant idea about the html on realestate, :cool: wow, never thought of that before.. love it!

My next question then, leads naturally to this one:

What reports are the best to find out how much the house is worth? RP Data or Residex's previous sales history? Or any other I'm missing?

cheers guys,
 
Originally Posted by Propertunity
You can also see on realestate.com.au what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......buy looking at View Page Source (after a right mouse click on the advert), then Edit, Find, price (hit 'next' a few times to find it)

You can also find "adprice" for it to come up first time

Absolutely brilliant!
 
can I turn this up a notch ;)

How would you approach this.. you have a specific type of property in mind, know what they're priced at, you've got your finance pre-approved, you mention that you're ok with offering an unconditional contract.. then the agent asks what your budget is? :)
 
I use my usual approach of tell it like it is and reply:
I'm an investor, I'll buy anything under $1 million that I think is undervalued and gives me a great return.
Wadda you got?

Do you really care if it's 400, 300 or 600 if your an investor?
Do you buy BHP because $40 is "in your budget" or because you think it's cheap?
Same goes for RE, if your an investor.
 
What reports are the best to find out how much the house is worth? RP Data or Residex's previous sales history? Or any other

When we were buying properties, we were predominantly looking at properties passed in at Auction - so we would be looking at the highest real bid and the reserve as parameters for our negotiation.

Where it was a straight sale ("private sale" in Vic), it often came down to "intuition"..... :eek: or not..... just looked at the asking price and started at 15%-20% lower, and meeting them say 10% below the asking....

I guess what I am trying to say is that we really didn't do a heck of a lot of research other than keeping auction records from the paper every week.

It is a bit harder now, because the figures are polluted with VB's and reserves are not often published....

The issue with sales history is this: you don't know what the guts of the property was like (or the backyard for that matter) - so they are only going to be a guideline anyway.

You develop an intuition ("gut feel") for a fair price in a particular suburb once you've been to plenty of auctions and open inspections - and see what they fetch.

For a PPOR as it is in your case, I WOULD give him the budget at which you're looking at. There's nothing in it for the agent to show you something outside of that range - either you can't afford it, or you'll know it's overpriced (and it will probably not be somewhere you want to live).

Remember, we averaged 5 to 7 inspections per weekend for months at a time - thats' how many we needed to get to to get a "fair idea" for the area. You can cut that time down, because you'll most likely have tighter criteria - eg proximity to transport, schools, power lines, slope of land, feng shui of the surrounding hills etc etc etc - so you woldn't even bother going to look at something that didn't satisfy these.


Cheers,

The Y-man
 
Wrony, wrong, wrong :p
You can also see on realestate.com.au what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......buy looking at View Page Source (after a right mouse click on the advert), then Edit, Find, price (hit 'next' a few times to find it)

Sorry you lost me a little here...what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......???? When I do this I get a heap of prices, but for a heap of houses.
 
Me: Hi just wondering what price range the owners are expecting for XX property (could be auction or no price listed)
REA: What's your budget?
Me: Uuum, the low 600's.

It's really annoying when asking a question to be answered with a question, but that's the way these REA are trained. You need to open with a statement, not a question. Say "Tell me about the property" and leave price out of it. They will do everything they can to find out about you, and it will be practice and confidence that eventually you can deflect this until it suits you.

Piston Broke's method of saying that he's an investor with a large budget who obviously doesn't want to blow it on one house is good...and nebulous. It also qualifies him as someone who has the means to buy the house and isn't going to be a tyre kicker wasting the agent's time.
 
You can also see on realestate.com.au what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......buy looking at View Page Source (after a right mouse click on the advert), then Edit, Find, price (hit 'next' a few times to find it)

Can you or anyone decipher the price from the Page Source on this listing?

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-wynnum-106403715

When you click on "next" many different prices come up. First $429,000 then $595,000, then "reduced to 460,000" , then "offers in the low 600k's", then $427,500, then $525,000.
 
The recent changes to realestate.com.au seem to have fixed this little "error" :(

I found it. Thanks Propertunity... great tip for the future.

Back to the question... I found several prices but the one you will be most interested in was "serious offers over $469" :D

Happy hunting
 
You can also see on realestate.com.au what price placeholder the advert has been put in to see the agent's expectations......buy looking at View Page Source (after a right mouse click on the advert), then Edit, Find, price (hit 'next' a few times to find it)

Wow, this is pretty nifty!!! I see the place I love and want has got $300-$400k...this is as I expected and it's such a damn wide price range, it doesn't help me at all! lol

But I'll be using this always from now on.
 
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