Cancelling BA services due to not meeting expectations

Hi all, I engaged a BA to purchase a property interstate for me and so far they have not lived up to my expectations. My understanding was that a BA would leverage their knowledge of the market and relationships to recommend locations/properties suitable for my needs, provide access to off market opportunities, inspect the properties to ensure they are investment grade and assist with negotiating offers to ensure I get a good price.

The only value they have added so far to the whole buying process is physically inspecting the property to ensure it’s suitable in person. In terms of location recommendations, they didn’t suggest anything different to what I already had in mind. They have presented no off market opportunities, only linking me houses from realestate.com with my search parameters which I could do myself. They have written off properties as being “over budget” which have then actually gone on to sell below my budget, and the one time I made an offer on a property they just told me to offer my maximum budget. In terms of pricing estimates, they provide me with a computer generated core logic report which is outdated and not an accurate reflection of what is currently happening in the market these days. There have also been a few instances where they’ve missed a good property on realestate.com which I’ve then had to send to them and ask them to inspect.

Based on this, I am considering cancelling my engagement with them and going to a different BA but would like a few opinions first.

1) Am I expecting too much from the BA? Is all of the above normal for good BAs? Given that this is a service that will cost me in the tens of thousands of dollars I expected better, but I’m new to the whole property game so let me know if I’m being overly critical.

2) If I do cancel, how do I go about getting a refund on my $2k retainer? Is this possible?

many thanks.

 

That sounds really bad. I have used BAs before and wouldn't be happy with that. Read the contract to understand the refund conditions and push for it as hard as you can.

 

And yes what you listed as what a BA should do sounds completely on point.

"leverage their knowledge of the market and relationships to recommend locations/properties suitable for my needs, provide access to off market opportunities, inspect the properties to ensure they are investment grade and assist with negotiating offers"

For me, if they don't do one of the above, they are not doing their job. And some agents will tell you that off market properties are rare and they cant't guarantee if they can get any - I don't waste my time on those agents. Off market opportunities is one of THE biggest things I pay them for! Not just legwork and copy and pasting Domain listings into a spreadsheet

 

That is shocking!

Couldn't be happy with that!

 

The funny thing is, this BA has been recommended a lot on this forum. So I’m pretty surprised that this is the service I get.

 

Wow. Sorry to hear that. Are you dealing with an assistant or are you dealing with the recommended agent directly?

 

Has the BA outlined their full scope of services in the agreement you signed? If so, and you are not receiving the full service as agreed, then there may be an opportunity to cancel the agreement based on a breach on their part.
Perhaps start with a conversation to express your concerns and see if there is any reason for their disappointing performance.

 

Chatting to quite a few local BA’s here on the Sunshine Coast, they are all saying off markets are very hard to come by in this market. Anyone selling wants to test the market and open them up to as many buyers as possible so i wouldn’t mark the BA too harshly on this aspect.

 

I would be spewing if that happened to me.
I would expect them to be presenting tons of off-market opportunities below market value that demonstrate they have undertaken tons of ground work to bring their value to reality.

 

I used a BA to buy a property in Brisbane recently and I can understand why you and some others are frustrated and I felt the same sometime. But a few things in my view:
1. You cant judge a BA by off market deals in this market - my BA bought a few off market deals sometime but I did not like them. I actually think those properties are poor quality so it seems the seller did not even bother to go to market and hope to get a decent deal to save cost. Else why would they not tidy it up a bit (dont even need to make it look nice!) and they will get a few offers at least; and the better price should cover advertising cost by more people bidding it up; and they can sell within a few days anyway. This off market advantage is marketing that too many BAs used and they set the wrong expectation in this market.
2. The market is so competitive so I dont think any BA can do their magic unless you/they want to offer high price, which can be against buyer's interest. Hence a good BA should not do that either. I do agree that BA/buyer will need to pay a fair price to secure a property, else you lose more on opportunity cost every week / month. So that is the balance.

I did not feel that happy with my BA either but like any working relationship, I had to work with him to secure what I need - in the end, to me, it became more about risk management where BA can inspect; offer / liaise with seller agent; coordinate for BP inspection; taking actual photos, etc in this case for me.

So up to you, but I would suggest to see if you can work with this BA to get what you want; have that honest conversation to work it out before going to someone else - at least you work with the devil you know. Good luck.

 

The contract just lists the "package" I have been engaged for, and then the additional information document they gave me says what that package does at a high level, but doesn't get into the detail of how they will conduct the search, whether they give off-market opportunities etc.

It does however list a clause regarding a cancellation fee that may be charged to cover the cost of additional work conducted beyond the retainer fee, and that this is subject to 'fair play' policy.

Of course my preference would be to have a conversation to address my concerns and then improve on the service they are providing, rather than just cancel the whole thing. I will definitely take that approach and see how that goes.

 

Not too sure whose in the fault.

Its a hot market at the moment (most places in Aus) and there isnt really much a BA can do than inspect on your behalf and give you advice on how to present an offer if interested.

I mean isnt that what a BA's job is? Inspect and negotiate on your behalf.

There not magicians or advisors, there agents that do your leg work. Sometimes via experience and relationships they may be able to do it better than the inexperienced buyer.

 

I would be expecting them to show you some property. However given you are still in the game and looking I wonder if a BA is just an inspection tool at present. They may be failing expectations and you may have excessive expectations when you can do it yourself albeit without flying there. Supply is hard at present. Two had boards go up in my street in Sydney and were sold in a day. I didnt even see one board until it had sold on it TODAY, it wasnt there yesterday but a photographer was taking pics at dusk. Today its sold..... Agents wont care who the buyer is and any cudos a BA may have probably means nil at present and agents will expect rapid action at the best price. And by best I dont mean best expected price. A knockout offer. There will be multiple eager buyers wanting it also.

I am told agents dont even bother putting prices on homes now and its a blind bidding war until the owner is stunned and says - sold. Their asking price is the base floor and then it goes up based on how many keen buyers will pay. I had a flyer land in the lettrebox for a 3bed 2 bath small project build around the corner and the sold price blew me away. It was 40-50% more than I would have ever considered was a top price. My son knows the agent and asked. He says they had 10+ willing desperate buyers. It seems FOMO and abundant credit are pushing things. He confirmed that they dont even get the ads into the mags or online before many sell. They send emails and texts to known buyers and its then "on"

 

I have use BA both times when it was in Brisbane. Because I was time poor.
Not like I didn't know what I was looking for, but I want their honest opinion and they have track record on making tough deals.
In a HOT market and shortage of stock - is there much a BA can get hot off market deals?
Even I would think it would be a hard ask for BA.
I would go back to my BA for the 3rd time when the times come again. I know he is top 1% and very knowledgeable - have over $10m worth of properties under his own belt.

Maybe your budget isn't good enough in this market or he isn't interested at all?
Churn and Churn?

 

I spoke to them about it and expressed my concerns, turns out the BA I was dealing with was halfway out the door so the Principal BA has now taken over my brief and I felt relieved thinking maybe now we could get something.

Then on Saturday they failed to inspect a property I asked them to prioritise as property number 1 for that weekend as it met all my requirements. The excuse was they didn’t see my email that I had sent 2 days prior to the inspection, the same day they asked me if I was interested in that property (????????)

When I expressed my disappointment and asked them to go back to the agent, the response was that it’s probably already under offer and they probably wouldn’t have been able to look at it anyway because they had a lot of inspection clashes. I feel like this excuse is not good enough - that was the ideal property for me and I had expressed that in my email that was supposedly missed, why should I be deprioritised over other clients inspections?

Any tips on how to address this? I’m pretty livid as this property sold within my budget and had my yield expections, something that has been difficult to find in this current market.

 

This seems like a shocking story. Is this where they should be reported to their industry org, or to the consumer protection ppl ( can't remember their name ).

 

Sorry if you mentioned it already somewhere @millie29 but what state or city are you buying in?

 

It definitely doesn't sound up to scratch to me as the basics of customer service still apply and obviously are then tailored further for the service you're paying for. At the absolute least you should be having the properties that fit your brief inspected, short-listed and then pursued as recommended by them or directed by you. In terms of reports, DD and other aspects, every BA is different and I've seen varying levels of expertise and experience in this regard. Printing off a Corelogic report is not due diligence.

There have been a few comments here about off-market properties that are generally quite balanced and I think fair. The whole 'off market' property thing can be a little over hyped and whilst yes, we absolutely see and buy off market property, here are a couple of somewhat intertwined considerations:

There are no guarantees that off market properties will come up - the market isn't controlled by BAs, it's just known (or should be) by the BA and yes, relationships with agents should be maintained to maximise this exposure to off market property, but sometimes there just aren't any. This is only one part of the BA service and part of the advantage, but it should definitely not be the sole reason to engage a BA and is not the reason people struggle to buy property and sometimes need help. Time and time again the main reason people fail to acquire property within a reaonable time frame is being out of touch with the market, not recognising value at a price that could be paid, not negotiating well, or simply not being prepared and getting through the right steps at the right pace to be in a strong position to offer properly and promptly if the property is right i.e. being time poor or lacking knowledge of the process.

Off market properties aren't a magic list, nor are they usually quality stock over and above what is marketed online under a full campaign. Often they are poorly presented by someone who doesn't want to pay for any sales prep or marketing, or are divorced sales trying to keep a low profile, or someone who wants a quick sale from a database. Recently, we have seen more come up due to covid i.e. vendors not wanting lots of people walking through their house. There are various reasons for people to sell off market, even in a hot market, but there are definitely less of them. Having said that, we probably buy 50%-60% of our client's properties off market, but we also dismiss a lot of off market stock and pursue on-market stock for reasons listed above.

Don't engage a BA just to access a special list of stock no one else has. It's just that if the relationships are maintained the sales agents know we have pre-qualified and serious buyers (they too vet their buyers as there are a lot of time waster and tyre kicker buyers) so they are often more likely to send off-market stock our way, but we also work hard to call and send emails to find it - which anyone can do if you want to put in the time.

Anyway, just some food for thought and hope it helps. Overall it doesn't sound like you're getting the best service from a BA so it sounds fair you're asking those questions.

- Andrew

 

A mate of mine had a poor experience previously with a BA. Made big promises on suburb selections (pre-engagement), but delivered nothing. Looking at the WhatsApp messages/emails exchanged between my mate and the BA I can tell this BA is just completely clueless - he sent a spreadsheet filled with realestate.com links arranged by inspection time (some of which were already under contract) and RP data estimates which at times had wide range (like $800k-1.15m, with low confidence, that sort of situation).

When asked about the appropriate price for the offer the BA would simply say anything price within RP data is good. In the end, my mate sourced his own property, though the BA did add value by closing the deal last minute by making a cheeky second offer following a “best offer” Dutch auction.