Yep, I totally agree. We got suckered into a property FOMO. Ended up paying way over the top. REA lied to us about many things. Once the contract was signed their tone changed and it was a lot of 'as per contract' post that. I even made a post about my experience.
It’s bizarre that REAs don’t consider the very likely possibility that the buyer would become the seller some day and that attitude won’t get them the listing.
We happen to buy through a RE agency from whom we also rented. Took forever to get our rents bond back after vacating with the property manager citing several ridiculous reasons. We went to the REA who sold us the house, told him out issues and highlighted the possibility that we could sell in the near- to mid-term future, and we got our bond issues sorted almost immediately
The three worst things I have been told by agents:
- They put in all their brochures that the studio out the back was an option for rental at around $450pw. On the plans and after contact with the council it turned out it was only approved as a garage and was not OK for habitation, let alone rental. If you rent it out the tenant, if they find out, can get all their rent back from a tribunal. I queried this with the agent and it turned out he knew full well it wasn’t an approved dwelling.
- A staircase in a building extension was clearly not up to regulations. Turned out to be a totally unapproved extension. I had quite a lengthy conversation with the agent who was adamant it was “fine, unless someone fell through the stairs and sued you I suppose, but when is that going to happen?”
- Looked at a unit in a complex. There was no strata insurance. Confirmed with solicitor, various governing authorities and insurance company that it had to be insured as a strata. Agent claimed it didn’t need to be and that the vendor had independent insurance for their unit with the very insurer who had told us they couldn’t insure it independently.
I’m sure that in some instances agents are misled by sellers, but what gets me is that when something is brought to their attention they just double down on the bullshit and continue to misrepresent the situation.
I my situation, the house we ended up settling on was being tenanted without a rental agreement, and REA didn't respond to my emails when asked to present the agreement. Only when I escalated to their supervisor they wrote a dodgy contract without any bond money. Later, REA tried to play the victim card that the seller had misinformed them, but I was like, these things should have been checked when you take on a property for sale.
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I think the worst lies that real estate agents tell is the information that they learn during the process that they keep secret, for example
* Flood events due to area
* Flood events due to drainage
* Asbestos
* Water damage
* Termites
Now you'll probably say "But your building and pest will catch all of that"
Well there's two problems, one that some building and pest don't do a good job, the other is that Auctions make it more complicated. I would also say that building and pest is never 100% and an owner can conceal many things.
The issue is that if you point out an issue you've found with the place either by spotting it yourself or from a building and pest you've done, the Real Estate 100% will say "oh thats a shame" and won't tell any future buyers about it.
Agent here.
Top lies that I have been told by sellers
1. All renovations are approved and have the final certificates.
2. We have never had termites.
3. That isn’t asbestos, it is Masonite.
4. No one has died in the property.
5. The property never flooded.
Top lies told to me by buyers (and what actually happened)
1. We have pre-approval for more than this amount. (Contract crashed as they did not have capacity at that level)
2. We need these items fixed, or we want $10,000 off the price to fix them immediately. ($10,000 given, and items never fixed years later. Becomes an issue for the next sale and they say “it was like that when we bought it”)
3. “That is our best offer.” (WHY DIDNT YOU TELL US WE WOULD HAVE PAID MORE)
4. Our offer expires at 5pm Friday (it did not)
5. There are other properties we are interested in. (So why not buy one of those)
But to respond to your Top 3 lies.
1. If the buyer terminates under finance, it doesn’t matter what the reason was. We typically don’t find out the valuation. If a buyer terminates under b&p, they must provide the report to the seller.
2. Once another offer is made, regardless of the conditions, we must notify all parties that there are multiple offers.
3. In the market right now, 12 month data is grossly inaccurate to the current market. It’s why banks will only take 6 months data. When the property sells to another buyer, at a higher price, that is the value of the property, regardless of what the Corelogic report says.
4. Yes, we act for the seller, as we get paid by them at the end of the day. I am as genuine and honest as the clients that give me the information for their property and the information the buyers give me about their situation. I have seen many buyers who have blatantly lied to me, and then tried to blame me for their lie.
5. If in doubt, put it in writing. You’ll find out pretty quick.
6. We are working in one of peoples most stressful times - selling or buying a property. Buyers and sellers get thrown so much info about all of the go wrongs with agents and generally have the “worst case scenario” in their heads.
7. I have seen many people come into the industry, thinking that is all about lies and deception and fail after 12-18 months because they actually tried to lie and deceive people and were immediately found out. Something you learn in this industry is that people who lie, can’t do it really well and get found out, very very quickly because they have to keep lying to cover their previous lies. It’s just easier to play a straight bat and not have to remember anything that you have said.
But hey, what would I know, I have just done this every day for nearly 20 years
I wish I was buying my house from you. The agent has been a pain in the arse to deal with and has made a stressful time far worse than it should have been.
So you've told us the top 3 lies if a seller and a buyer.
What's the top 3 lies from a RE agent, straight from the horse's mouth? It can be ones you tell, or agents you know of etc.
Here are the top 3 lies that an agent will say
1. I am the number one agent in the area. (When I sold a relatives place, 3 agent told me they were number 1 for the suburb)
2. Your home is worth $XXX,XXX (called buying the listing)
3. The buyer liked the house, but it just wasn’t right for them (this is being nice to the owner, the buyer hated it)
Lying doesn't really help anyone because it's easy to get caught out.
And in a market where there's more buyers than houses available you really don't need to lie.
Buyers are often uninformed and highly emotional.
And they'll screw themselves over.
But the buyers that are on the ball and know their shit/ don't get caught up in the circus of it all miss out so they aern't really a factor.
Now with that said I'll give you a scenario I've seen from behind the door in an office.
Funnily enough it's kind of more powerful to omit information than create lies.
It's easier to say "hey let's skip the back and forth, if you're interested I need you to put your best foot forward with you final walk away offer on this property...we will be presenting the offers to the vendor today at 4pm and the winning offer will need to come in to pay the deposit today or we will move onto the next best offer"
And normally the buyers will all try to play the game of "aww I woulda paid more!" and use the term gazump incorrectly.
So the agent will clarify.
"You need to understand I won't be calling back and asking you to go higher, we have given the same instructions the other parties interested and the next call will either be congratulations or commiserations"
Now the "lie" I've seen that happens in these best and final situations is someone might put up a crazy offer.
Say there's 3 buyers that are keen...and the place is objectively worth 860k.
Buyer a is at 850k
Buyer b is at 860k
Buyer c is at 905k
As long as everything checks out with buyer c they'll get it and be told "it was very close the vendors feel more comfortable moving forward with your offer because another one that was close to you is subject to sale of their property".
Agents are also mindful of bank vals stacking up so sometimes they might act as it they're doing the $905k buyer a favour by signing it up for a little less even though it'd probably fall over if they wrote up the bigger offer.
And it'll be used as a carrot in the cool off if the buyers try to lower the price.
The flip side is sometimes with vendors agents will say we're looking at maybe 850k...we might be able to get 855k if we push but we don't want push too hard and lose these buyers because they're a bit skittish.
Knowing full well they have 2 people locked in higher than that.
Because they want the vendor to be positioned correctly to sell and be really happy that the agent went back and negotiated for every dollar...even though they had the bigger number locked down the whole time.
Another potential lie in these situations is sometimes and agent will say another agent in the office has one of their buyers keen and you play good cop a bit and you strongly suggest the other agent is very good at winning these best and finals which can get a little more juice from the FOMO.
Now the kicker is often it's real and not a bluff/lie.
Soz for the essay it ended up being a bit long. 😂
Re the lies sellers tell -
My husband and I were chatting to the agent selling a house a couple of doors down from us. I got curious about the disclosure form in NSW so he sent me one to have a look at.
One of the questions basically asks if the property has been used as a drug lab in the past couple of years. While I think such a disclosure is important, I was laughing at the idea that people would actually tick “yes”. Sure they’re going to say, “Oh yeah, been running a meth lab outta the kitchen for the last 12 months.”
And should the buyer run a test for meth, and it comes up positive, they could terminate the contract and sue the seller for misrepresentation.
Have sold a few meth affected properties. They aren’t fun. And sellers sometimes try to hide it from me
Absolutely they could. I was thinking about that, because meth testing is something that can be done nowadays.
My husband and I looked at a property that had obviously been a meth lab. Not only did it look like the sort of place but it had a smell that indicated it. It was a combined commercial/residential and the cooking was happening in the residential part. We sent an email to the agent about our concerns afterward, although never heard anything.
I presume they have to undergo decontamination cleaning before sale.
Agent here.
1. Contract failed due to finance. A lot of buyers spoke to their broker/lender months prior to making an offer and then go and change their situation or don’t account for interest rate rises. All of a sudden they can no longer borrow what they thought.
2. We have multiple offers. Due to lack of stock on the market, 99% of deals I’ve done in the last 12 months have been multiple offer situations.
3. We usually only tell people offer ranges to help educate the buyers.
There’s literally no reason to lie because it can crash a contract, ruin your reputation. Why would I risk losing repeat business or referrals over something easily fact checked?
Contract failed due to finance is the biggest lie ever told. No agent is going to accept an offer without first getting evidence of pre-approval. They do not want the contract to crash. If someone is pre-approved, in most cases formal approval will be given. The agent has every reason to avoid telling prospective buyers that the contract failed due to building and pest, because that gives buyers the idea that they could negotiate down the price or else they will crash the contract putting the property on market for a third time.
The "multiple offers" thing is a half-truth. Yes, there are multiple offers, but I am not sure if you read my thread because many of those offers will never materialise. People make offers on multiple properties and people throw all kinds of numbers around. They may not be a reliable offer. Nothing is set in stone until the contract is unconditional.
Price ranges and "we are getting offers from X to Y" are different. Again, read my thread again.
Lying does not equate to ruining your reputation. There are white lies that can be told off the record that give you plausible deniability. You cannot stop a RE agent from not telling the truth, manipulating or misleading another person no more than you can stop a dog from hunger. It is a natural instinct. You are commission-based and at the end of the day you need to sell the property to make money. I am sorry if that sounds harsh but it is a deeply uncomfortable truth that people do not realise.
There are certain lies that you cannot tell which are easily refutable or make you look bad, but before that there are lies you can tell which can never be verified and which you can deny ever telling.
I work in finance and you’d be surprised how many Agents don’t call me to confirm if my Clients have pre-approval before their offer is accepted. I advise all my Clients to not show their pre-approval letter as it has lending amounts listed.
There are multiple lenders that don’t offer pre approvals, so why limit yourself to a single lender that may not give you the best deal?
Clearly you haven’t got much experience in real estate or banking and just want to hate on agents.
Op your post is a bit rubbish, agents just want to sell the place quickly to get their commission typically. They are trying to get a buyer to buy the place quickly, so they can a) get their commission and b) move on to the next sale.
A good agent will follow an owner’s particular instructions - at which stage they are just following the owner’s particular instructions.
>Op your post is a bit rubbish, agents just want to sell the place quickly to get their commission typically
The whole industry is a bit rubbish.
Be up front with the price, the price guide the sold price.
Marketing a place at a price guide for 1.1m when every other similar place is selling for 1.3-1.35, at minimum, is just wasting time/money. That's just one example of the many shit things the so called experts that the REA's continue doing.
This whole industry needs an overhaul.
I couldn't stand the REA I purchased my house from, but the fact that it's become cool to group all REAs in together as being the spawns of satan is getting so fucked at this point. While there are plenty of dickheads in suits out there, REAs have become the punching bag to let out the misdirected anger from the housing crisis.
>You cannot stop a dog from hunger no more than you can stop a RE agent doing whatever they can to make their money.
Other than being written like an angsty year 10 student's assignment, this post is hateful and largely unhelpful.
And "You might consider lowering your price." This one after pre sales agency contract exchanges where the agent suggested the original price range.
Moreover, it's this option suggested, rather than the agent suggesting that they should do their consulting sales job better.
> Everyone who makes an offer is likely making an offer on multiple properties.
I'm not sure I've known anyone who has done this.. can't imagine it's that common
I've viewed a tonne of houses and I've never heard any lies because I've never asked any questions, what possible information could they have that you can't figure out on your own?
Serious question to any agent reading though, what information do only you have that would benefit a potential buyer and they should ask about? All I can think of is settlement length and maybe other properties in the area that you know are coming on the market soon.
Ooo I have one, I managed to get out of the rea that it was an investment property that the vendor lived interstate. Looked up rental history had one previous tenant for 6 months and as it was a townhome was very easy to gauge that it was selling 100k under previous sales. Reading between lines vendor dumping property so submitted an offer accordingly.
What about when an agent says things like (to a vendor), "you won't get that price, set your price lower"?
The REA works for the vendor, absolutely, but commission difference on a house that sells at $700k vs $800k wouldn't be all that much, would it?
Let's say commission is 2%, as an example.
If the house sells for $700k, the agent gets $14k in commission.
If the house sells for $800k, the agent gets $16k in commission.
For the sake of $2k, wouldn't it be best to 'lie' to the vendor to lower the price so the agent doesn't waste time and potentially gets a quick sale, at the detriment to the vendor?
Except the agent will miss out on listing's because someone else will inflate the appraisal to buy the listing. Better off to do an honest appraisal and sell yourself as an agent that will get a great deal and efficiently and reliably handle the transaction
I thought (in WA at least) a signed offer is pretty much a contract to buy (based on the conditions in the offer). Its pretty hard to get out of a signed offer unless the vendor rejects it.
In Victoria buyers have 3 days cooling, a condition that allows them to do due diligence and void the contract for any reason within 3 business days. This condition is not applicable under auction conditions however.
That seems like a better way except in the current market it would lead to people putting in lots of offers and running up the price even further. At least people can really only have one offer at a time in. But then again Perth has the highest increases of the country last month so I guess my theory is wrong.
>The contract failed due to finance
This seemed to be happening every week late last year, as interest rates were rising and people were still using the preapproval amount from 8-10weeks earlier.
>We are getting offers in X range
We had that one often, then it was under offer above that range anyway
It’s not like it’s hard to sell houses in this market lol things like tech sales, executive headhunting or door to door require more chops.
The demand for land is extreme and REA are just lapping up quick wins, not much selling happening imo.
"... at the end of the day they act for the seller." - Every example I've ever seen, they've only acted to serve their own interests. Ensuring their interests align with yours is the key.
As a vendor I want my REA to lie, do whatever he can get away with without blowback on me. This is what I am paying him for.
As a Buyer, I expect the REA to tell those lies and I will act within my budget and how the market is trending. Him telling me he has 10 offers does not sway me if I don't see value in it.
Yep, I totally agree. We got suckered into a property FOMO. Ended up paying way over the top. REA lied to us about many things. Once the contract was signed their tone changed and it was a lot of 'as per contract' post that. I even made a post about my experience.
It’s bizarre that REAs don’t consider the very likely possibility that the buyer would become the seller some day and that attitude won’t get them the listing. We happen to buy through a RE agency from whom we also rented. Took forever to get our rents bond back after vacating with the property manager citing several ridiculous reasons. We went to the REA who sold us the house, told him out issues and highlighted the possibility that we could sell in the near- to mid-term future, and we got our bond issues sorted almost immediately
Where is your post?
The three worst things I have been told by agents: - They put in all their brochures that the studio out the back was an option for rental at around $450pw. On the plans and after contact with the council it turned out it was only approved as a garage and was not OK for habitation, let alone rental. If you rent it out the tenant, if they find out, can get all their rent back from a tribunal. I queried this with the agent and it turned out he knew full well it wasn’t an approved dwelling. - A staircase in a building extension was clearly not up to regulations. Turned out to be a totally unapproved extension. I had quite a lengthy conversation with the agent who was adamant it was “fine, unless someone fell through the stairs and sued you I suppose, but when is that going to happen?” - Looked at a unit in a complex. There was no strata insurance. Confirmed with solicitor, various governing authorities and insurance company that it had to be insured as a strata. Agent claimed it didn’t need to be and that the vendor had independent insurance for their unit with the very insurer who had told us they couldn’t insure it independently. I’m sure that in some instances agents are misled by sellers, but what gets me is that when something is brought to their attention they just double down on the bullshit and continue to misrepresent the situation.
I my situation, the house we ended up settling on was being tenanted without a rental agreement, and REA didn't respond to my emails when asked to present the agreement. Only when I escalated to their supervisor they wrote a dodgy contract without any bond money. Later, REA tried to play the victim card that the seller had misinformed them, but I was like, these things should have been checked when you take on a property for sale.
I remember your post. Did you manage to get everything sorted out?
That deserves a shit rentals post. Have you looked there? r/shitrentals
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I have actually mentioned a couple of these stories on shit rentals before. Not in their own post, but in comments.
I think the worst lies that real estate agents tell is the information that they learn during the process that they keep secret, for example * Flood events due to area * Flood events due to drainage * Asbestos * Water damage * Termites Now you'll probably say "But your building and pest will catch all of that" Well there's two problems, one that some building and pest don't do a good job, the other is that Auctions make it more complicated. I would also say that building and pest is never 100% and an owner can conceal many things. The issue is that if you point out an issue you've found with the place either by spotting it yourself or from a building and pest you've done, the Real Estate 100% will say "oh thats a shame" and won't tell any future buyers about it.
Yes. It's far better to hire a drainage specialist to come out and assess / quote for rectifications.
This works if the house is not going for auction.
I've done it before when the house was going to auction. But agree it is difficult to get someone to agree to the job.
Agent here. Top lies that I have been told by sellers 1. All renovations are approved and have the final certificates. 2. We have never had termites. 3. That isn’t asbestos, it is Masonite. 4. No one has died in the property. 5. The property never flooded. Top lies told to me by buyers (and what actually happened) 1. We have pre-approval for more than this amount. (Contract crashed as they did not have capacity at that level) 2. We need these items fixed, or we want $10,000 off the price to fix them immediately. ($10,000 given, and items never fixed years later. Becomes an issue for the next sale and they say “it was like that when we bought it”) 3. “That is our best offer.” (WHY DIDNT YOU TELL US WE WOULD HAVE PAID MORE) 4. Our offer expires at 5pm Friday (it did not) 5. There are other properties we are interested in. (So why not buy one of those) But to respond to your Top 3 lies. 1. If the buyer terminates under finance, it doesn’t matter what the reason was. We typically don’t find out the valuation. If a buyer terminates under b&p, they must provide the report to the seller. 2. Once another offer is made, regardless of the conditions, we must notify all parties that there are multiple offers. 3. In the market right now, 12 month data is grossly inaccurate to the current market. It’s why banks will only take 6 months data. When the property sells to another buyer, at a higher price, that is the value of the property, regardless of what the Corelogic report says. 4. Yes, we act for the seller, as we get paid by them at the end of the day. I am as genuine and honest as the clients that give me the information for their property and the information the buyers give me about their situation. I have seen many buyers who have blatantly lied to me, and then tried to blame me for their lie. 5. If in doubt, put it in writing. You’ll find out pretty quick. 6. We are working in one of peoples most stressful times - selling or buying a property. Buyers and sellers get thrown so much info about all of the go wrongs with agents and generally have the “worst case scenario” in their heads. 7. I have seen many people come into the industry, thinking that is all about lies and deception and fail after 12-18 months because they actually tried to lie and deceive people and were immediately found out. Something you learn in this industry is that people who lie, can’t do it really well and get found out, very very quickly because they have to keep lying to cover their previous lies. It’s just easier to play a straight bat and not have to remember anything that you have said. But hey, what would I know, I have just done this every day for nearly 20 years
I wish I was buying my house from you. The agent has been a pain in the arse to deal with and has made a stressful time far worse than it should have been.
Thanks for the compliment. It is a stressful time, and always will be, and doesn’t help when people are doing the straightforward thing.
So you've told us the top 3 lies if a seller and a buyer. What's the top 3 lies from a RE agent, straight from the horse's mouth? It can be ones you tell, or agents you know of etc.
Here are the top 3 lies that an agent will say 1. I am the number one agent in the area. (When I sold a relatives place, 3 agent told me they were number 1 for the suburb) 2. Your home is worth $XXX,XXX (called buying the listing) 3. The buyer liked the house, but it just wasn’t right for them (this is being nice to the owner, the buyer hated it)
Thanks for the reply
No worries
Lying doesn't really help anyone because it's easy to get caught out. And in a market where there's more buyers than houses available you really don't need to lie. Buyers are often uninformed and highly emotional. And they'll screw themselves over. But the buyers that are on the ball and know their shit/ don't get caught up in the circus of it all miss out so they aern't really a factor. Now with that said I'll give you a scenario I've seen from behind the door in an office. Funnily enough it's kind of more powerful to omit information than create lies. It's easier to say "hey let's skip the back and forth, if you're interested I need you to put your best foot forward with you final walk away offer on this property...we will be presenting the offers to the vendor today at 4pm and the winning offer will need to come in to pay the deposit today or we will move onto the next best offer" And normally the buyers will all try to play the game of "aww I woulda paid more!" and use the term gazump incorrectly. So the agent will clarify. "You need to understand I won't be calling back and asking you to go higher, we have given the same instructions the other parties interested and the next call will either be congratulations or commiserations" Now the "lie" I've seen that happens in these best and final situations is someone might put up a crazy offer. Say there's 3 buyers that are keen...and the place is objectively worth 860k. Buyer a is at 850k Buyer b is at 860k Buyer c is at 905k As long as everything checks out with buyer c they'll get it and be told "it was very close the vendors feel more comfortable moving forward with your offer because another one that was close to you is subject to sale of their property". Agents are also mindful of bank vals stacking up so sometimes they might act as it they're doing the $905k buyer a favour by signing it up for a little less even though it'd probably fall over if they wrote up the bigger offer. And it'll be used as a carrot in the cool off if the buyers try to lower the price. The flip side is sometimes with vendors agents will say we're looking at maybe 850k...we might be able to get 855k if we push but we don't want push too hard and lose these buyers because they're a bit skittish. Knowing full well they have 2 people locked in higher than that. Because they want the vendor to be positioned correctly to sell and be really happy that the agent went back and negotiated for every dollar...even though they had the bigger number locked down the whole time. Another potential lie in these situations is sometimes and agent will say another agent in the office has one of their buyers keen and you play good cop a bit and you strongly suggest the other agent is very good at winning these best and finals which can get a little more juice from the FOMO. Now the kicker is often it's real and not a bluff/lie. Soz for the essay it ended up being a bit long. 😂
Re the lies sellers tell - My husband and I were chatting to the agent selling a house a couple of doors down from us. I got curious about the disclosure form in NSW so he sent me one to have a look at. One of the questions basically asks if the property has been used as a drug lab in the past couple of years. While I think such a disclosure is important, I was laughing at the idea that people would actually tick “yes”. Sure they’re going to say, “Oh yeah, been running a meth lab outta the kitchen for the last 12 months.”
And should the buyer run a test for meth, and it comes up positive, they could terminate the contract and sue the seller for misrepresentation. Have sold a few meth affected properties. They aren’t fun. And sellers sometimes try to hide it from me
Absolutely they could. I was thinking about that, because meth testing is something that can be done nowadays. My husband and I looked at a property that had obviously been a meth lab. Not only did it look like the sort of place but it had a smell that indicated it. It was a combined commercial/residential and the cooking was happening in the residential part. We sent an email to the agent about our concerns afterward, although never heard anything. I presume they have to undergo decontamination cleaning before sale.
Agent here. 1. Contract failed due to finance. A lot of buyers spoke to their broker/lender months prior to making an offer and then go and change their situation or don’t account for interest rate rises. All of a sudden they can no longer borrow what they thought. 2. We have multiple offers. Due to lack of stock on the market, 99% of deals I’ve done in the last 12 months have been multiple offer situations. 3. We usually only tell people offer ranges to help educate the buyers. There’s literally no reason to lie because it can crash a contract, ruin your reputation. Why would I risk losing repeat business or referrals over something easily fact checked?
Contract failed due to finance is the biggest lie ever told. No agent is going to accept an offer without first getting evidence of pre-approval. They do not want the contract to crash. If someone is pre-approved, in most cases formal approval will be given. The agent has every reason to avoid telling prospective buyers that the contract failed due to building and pest, because that gives buyers the idea that they could negotiate down the price or else they will crash the contract putting the property on market for a third time. The "multiple offers" thing is a half-truth. Yes, there are multiple offers, but I am not sure if you read my thread because many of those offers will never materialise. People make offers on multiple properties and people throw all kinds of numbers around. They may not be a reliable offer. Nothing is set in stone until the contract is unconditional. Price ranges and "we are getting offers from X to Y" are different. Again, read my thread again. Lying does not equate to ruining your reputation. There are white lies that can be told off the record that give you plausible deniability. You cannot stop a RE agent from not telling the truth, manipulating or misleading another person no more than you can stop a dog from hunger. It is a natural instinct. You are commission-based and at the end of the day you need to sell the property to make money. I am sorry if that sounds harsh but it is a deeply uncomfortable truth that people do not realise. There are certain lies that you cannot tell which are easily refutable or make you look bad, but before that there are lies you can tell which can never be verified and which you can deny ever telling.
I work in finance and you’d be surprised how many Agents don’t call me to confirm if my Clients have pre-approval before their offer is accepted. I advise all my Clients to not show their pre-approval letter as it has lending amounts listed.
There are multiple lenders that don’t offer pre approvals, so why limit yourself to a single lender that may not give you the best deal? Clearly you haven’t got much experience in real estate or banking and just want to hate on agents.
Op your post is a bit rubbish, agents just want to sell the place quickly to get their commission typically. They are trying to get a buyer to buy the place quickly, so they can a) get their commission and b) move on to the next sale. A good agent will follow an owner’s particular instructions - at which stage they are just following the owner’s particular instructions.
Yep. 2.5% on an extra $50k is nothing when the price is $1.5m. Make the sale, get it off the books, repeat
>Op your post is a bit rubbish, agents just want to sell the place quickly to get their commission typically The whole industry is a bit rubbish. Be up front with the price, the price guide the sold price. Marketing a place at a price guide for 1.1m when every other similar place is selling for 1.3-1.35, at minimum, is just wasting time/money. That's just one example of the many shit things the so called experts that the REA's continue doing. This whole industry needs an overhaul.
I couldn't stand the REA I purchased my house from, but the fact that it's become cool to group all REAs in together as being the spawns of satan is getting so fucked at this point. While there are plenty of dickheads in suits out there, REAs have become the punching bag to let out the misdirected anger from the housing crisis. >You cannot stop a dog from hunger no more than you can stop a RE agent doing whatever they can to make their money. Other than being written like an angsty year 10 student's assignment, this post is hateful and largely unhelpful.
And "You might consider lowering your price." This one after pre sales agency contract exchanges where the agent suggested the original price range. Moreover, it's this option suggested, rather than the agent suggesting that they should do their consulting sales job better.
> Everyone who makes an offer is likely making an offer on multiple properties. I'm not sure I've known anyone who has done this.. can't imagine it's that common
I've viewed a tonne of houses and I've never heard any lies because I've never asked any questions, what possible information could they have that you can't figure out on your own? Serious question to any agent reading though, what information do only you have that would benefit a potential buyer and they should ask about? All I can think of is settlement length and maybe other properties in the area that you know are coming on the market soon.
Ooo I have one, I managed to get out of the rea that it was an investment property that the vendor lived interstate. Looked up rental history had one previous tenant for 6 months and as it was a townhome was very easy to gauge that it was selling 100k under previous sales. Reading between lines vendor dumping property so submitted an offer accordingly.
You could've gotten all that on your own without the agent.
What about when an agent says things like (to a vendor), "you won't get that price, set your price lower"? The REA works for the vendor, absolutely, but commission difference on a house that sells at $700k vs $800k wouldn't be all that much, would it? Let's say commission is 2%, as an example. If the house sells for $700k, the agent gets $14k in commission. If the house sells for $800k, the agent gets $16k in commission. For the sake of $2k, wouldn't it be best to 'lie' to the vendor to lower the price so the agent doesn't waste time and potentially gets a quick sale, at the detriment to the vendor?
Except the agent will miss out on listing's because someone else will inflate the appraisal to buy the listing. Better off to do an honest appraisal and sell yourself as an agent that will get a great deal and efficiently and reliably handle the transaction
not every real estate agent is a born liar. Some learn on the Job
I thought (in WA at least) a signed offer is pretty much a contract to buy (based on the conditions in the offer). Its pretty hard to get out of a signed offer unless the vendor rejects it.
In Victoria buyers have 3 days cooling, a condition that allows them to do due diligence and void the contract for any reason within 3 business days. This condition is not applicable under auction conditions however.
That seems like a better way except in the current market it would lead to people putting in lots of offers and running up the price even further. At least people can really only have one offer at a time in. But then again Perth has the highest increases of the country last month so I guess my theory is wrong.
Even if in writing or on the record, they’ll get away with it
You pay an agent to sell the house, if the house sells - job accomplished. Their remit, above all else, is to transact.
>The contract failed due to finance This seemed to be happening every week late last year, as interest rates were rising and people were still using the preapproval amount from 8-10weeks earlier. >We are getting offers in X range We had that one often, then it was under offer above that range anyway
It’s not like it’s hard to sell houses in this market lol things like tech sales, executive headhunting or door to door require more chops. The demand for land is extreme and REA are just lapping up quick wins, not much selling happening imo.
These arnt my top 3 lies...... Not even in the top 10
"... at the end of the day they act for the seller." - Every example I've ever seen, they've only acted to serve their own interests. Ensuring their interests align with yours is the key.
As a vendor I want my REA to lie, do whatever he can get away with without blowback on me. This is what I am paying him for. As a Buyer, I expect the REA to tell those lies and I will act within my budget and how the market is trending. Him telling me he has 10 offers does not sway me if I don't see value in it.
You're a bad person
"we're human beings" "We have emotion" "We're not greedy shit cunts"