Buyers agent

So I've heard a lot about buyers agents. But I was hoping to hear some stories of what the property chat community thought about them. If they were worth what you paid for them, and if so, what makes them worth getting?
If I found a good buyers agent, should I stick with that one in particular? Or should I use multiple buyers agents?
Thanks in advance for everyone's opinions.

 

Hi Jack,

It depends on what are to trying to achieve.

For me, if I wanted to buy existing property inter state outside where I live, then I'd consider buyers agent to assist me in the research, due diligence and the negotiating the property during the auction or private treaty sale.

If I were you I'd certainly stick to just one BA that is specialising in certain state rather than asking them to go across the nation to look for the property.

 

I'm still just starting out, but personally I think they make sense if you don't have the time / will power to find your own suburbs & opportunities. So far both my purchases have been in the same same state, different areas & 4ish years apart after visiting tonnes of open homes & browsing countless properties online.

If & when I ever expand to another market, I'll probably do a mixture of my own (remote) research but also engage a buyers agent.

There are suburbs in area/scope that I keep an eye on e.g. Forest Lakes & West of Ipswich, that can make sense from a spreadsheet perspective (as long as you ignore the flat growth..) that I've seen recommended or talked about on here by people from down south, that I honestly don't think they would touch if they had ever been to them.
I tend to think people make assumptions based on their own markets, e.g. Sydneyites thinking how bad can a suburb 25km west of the CBD be? Which in QLD is a really, really long way inland, really, really hot (no coastal breezes), not very desirable and surrounded by future greenfield sites.


Unless I personally move down south, I'll be engaging a buyers agent to help me dodge those sorts of areas and not make assumptions about other markets based on mine.

 

There's good and bad buyers agents, just like there's good and bad dentists, teachers and cleaners. You need to find one that knows your chosen area well and has good past results.

What areas are you considering?

 

Given your goal is to build a considerable property portfolio, I think you should probably learn how to research and buy a property yourself? Will save you a fair bit of money and also teach you things to be aware of.

If buying interstate, you can use the money you save on actually visiting the areas your interested in.

That's how im going about it anyway.

 

No where in pa

No where in particular at the moment, I'm wanting to be a borderline investor as my portfolio grows.
Do you know if there are agents that specialise in commercial property?

Thank you for your feed back too!

 

Yes there is.

What do you mean by borderline?

 

Sorry, I meant to say 'Borderless' instead of borderline. Auto-correct error.

 

Being a first time buyer funds can be a bit limited. However if you can afford one, it can help introduce you to an area where once you learn the basics you can repeat the process. That's assuming they are also educating you as they go. The key question would be what is your strategy (chicken and egg situation) ...you may not know your strategy....so how do you give them a tight criteria as to what will tick your boxes? May be worth listing out what you think would make a good purchase and then refine with a BA.

It also helps if they are on the ground and beat another interstate investor to get your deal infront of the queue. Depends where you're buying.

It does cost a bit. But there is a lot of work involved in my opinion. It will come down to how clear you are in your brief.....otherwise if you say you want to buy in suburb X and they get you a property at the edge of the area with limited fundamentals...would you be happy?

Take two steps back, what are you trying to achieve? What sort of portolio are you considering building? Where do you see yourself in the next 5, 10, 15 years time?

Sometimes as I heard on this audio I was listening to.....we need night vision goggles as we can't see through to where we are headed.

What are you trying to achieve?

 

But how do you know if they are "good" - and apologies if this has been asked in another thread. I'm not talking about how they were to deal with for the transaction - although that is part of it - I'm talking about their results.

For example managed funds have historical rates of return, benchmarks etc but buyers agents don't seem to have - or don't advertise that. They say generic things like 'we have helped X number if clients buy Y million worth of property'

That's all well and good, but is it worth Y + average growth, above average or is it below average for the suburb/area. And remembering to make up for their fee it's got to perform well/better than what me, Joe average can do.

If anyone has some stats or link to other thread that would be good.

 

My end goal is to have the option to retire earlier then normal if I ever want to. To live off the passive income my portfolio provides.

 

Cool. That's the goal for most people. Quantify it. Typically 20 to 25 times your desired income for unencumbered property. The earlier you start the better. However some great examples on the forum for people who started later 40's / 50's and have done great.