Calling all Buyer Agents

Hi,

Can any buyer agent tell me normally how many clients do you work for at the same time? I had a chat with a BA in QLD and the BA told me currently it is about 20 clients at the same time and still a lot in the waiting list. That sounds a bit too many to keep a good service level to me.

Cheers,
Kai

 

Hi,

4-6 clients at a time with 1-2 of those out of immediate action (holidays, having babies or other work/family crises) is about a full time job for 1 BA.

20 clients for 3-4 BAs from the same office perhaps?

 

Hi Kai,

A Buyer's Agent who is working with 6+ clients at the same time who all have different brief's (ie trying to find PPOR's for clients who all have different emotional attachments or investment properties with 'specific' requests) is certainly going to be a Buyer's Agent who has plenty on their plate.

As well as asking how many clients they are working with, the best question to ask is "How do you choose which client to recommend a property to." - if they can't answer that question or you aren't comfortable with their response.... move on.

 

What about several clients of the BA have similar brief? Do they need to compete with each other even when they are paying for the BA? How does a good BA handle this situation?

 

What I heard was 20 clients for 1 senior BA and 1 junior BA.

 

A good BA does not take on 2 or more clients with the same brief. That is not to say that he/she does not have clients looking in the same area. You might for instance have a client looking for a $2.5M house in Killara at the same time you are looking for a $950K unit for another client in Killara.

 

It will also depend on whether or not the BAs have a property researcher/s on the team as well. But if just 2 x of them as BAs the customer service offering will be suffering IMO.

 

I wonder if this is the same BA that doesn't return calls or takes 6 months to buy a property for clients??

Ask them to show you what properties they have purchased for clients over the last 4/5 weeks. It should be 20 (or nearly), if they are keeping up with the work. (based on averaging 20 clients at once.

How much would you lose in CG in a moving market if it took a BA 6 months to find a property?

 

Hi Kai

We service clients seeking investment properties and stick to a limit of hunting property for a limit of 5 buyers at any one time.

I agree with Chris - having the likes of 20 on the go at once may well lead to a service that doesn't return calls etc.

On any given day a substantial amount of activity can take place with respect to an acquisition and this requires full and immediate attention. Certain activities cannot be delayed and dealt with at a later time, and this applies both to the "searching/offering" phase and also to the "under contract" phase. Time and care is always of the essence and it is highly unlikely that one person can properly service 20 acquisitions at once.

During the "searching/offering" phase, a property that is suitable for a client needs to be reviewed straight away, since it could be sold by the afternoon to another party.

During the "under contract" phase, a property that is under contract can have plenty of curve balls that you cannot control but you can manage. However this must happen without delay. For example, a lender sending out incorrect loan documents and creating a situation that risks ability to settle on time etc etc. All these things have to be handled straight away, and this does not take zero minutes to achieve. There are dealings to be had with the agent, client, lender and legal reps when things like this happen. It should be noted that it is not always part of a BA's service offering to get involved with such woes after the property is under contract, and as such it is important to be clear on what is handled for you while you are busy in meetings at your day job. You do not want to come out of your 5 hour work meeting marathon to find that a crisis has unfolded and nobody was handling it for you.

 

What type of quality service do you believe you'd receive from a buyers agency who has this many clients? We struggle with 5 per BA, though it does make a difference as to what search stage they're up to.

Also what's their definition of a junior BA? Just curious...

 

I have worked as a BA for 11 years now and there is no way I could provide a level of service I would be happy with to 20 clients.

I would need to drastically reduce the amount of work I did for my clients in order to deliver any kind of result and to be honest, I would not feel right doing that.


I have a maximum of 4 active clients at a time and do not take on 2 clients with the same brief. The only time I work with more than 4 is when a client may have a very precise brief which does not come up often in their price range or desired suburb. The work I do for them becomes weekly monitoring and networking with key agents, but very few inspections which leaves room for me to work with other clients.

 

Nathan Birch buys 100 properties a month... Not sure how any of these can be quality