Poll- Used a buyers agent?

Went through initial meetings & strategy, up front fee $1100, & 2.5% of purchese price for BA.

Went it alone and used RP data, microburbs, on the house, view, ABS data etc & narrowed down a list of suburbs/streets. Bought with competing offers, Once bought I mentioned to the BA what I had done and turns out he was one of the other competing offers

I either paid to much. Or should be a BA.

 

I have the same question for Buyer's Agents as I do for Financial Advisors, why are your charges a % of the asset, not a flat fee? Charge a flat fee or hourly rate and a BA's value may gain more general credibility. At least with a selling agent, the % aligns interest, meaning a higher price benefits both parties, but it seems nonsensical for a buyer's agent to have the same approach!

 

I wonder that too... if BA payment is based on the %, isn't it conflicting with their own personal interest (higher price=higher fee)?

Beside that, how will I know if what they get is a good outcome, what is the measure or comparison? I am just curious.

 

Simple answer is, find a BA with a fixed price flat fee that is justified for the price range you are looking in.

 

I used BA for one of my IPs. Flat fee less than $10k in a hot but not so expensive market. Interstate. I did the research, selected the property and then engaged the BA to inspect, negotiate, and handle things until settlement. Overal, happy with his service. At least he secured the property within the lower end of my estimated price range for that IP and saved me a lot of time. If I needed to do it myself, there would be few interstate flights and several hours of work which would cost more than the BA fee.

For me, I will use BA services if buy interstate but DIY if buy in my state.

 

That's a lot of money, but you'll never know whether it's slowed your journey significantly. Your properties may have outperformed that amount by virtue of the fact that they were better quality assets or better performers for various reasons. In my experience, people who have used BAs generally get better results than the money they have spent on the service itself, relative to other self made purchases. I do have a specific example where using the BA saved $25,000 on a single purchase when the buyer was willing to pay that amount more for the property - the BA saved them this amount of money during negotiation, convincing the buyer (for whom they worked) to let them do their job and continue negotiations when the buyer was willing to sign the contract.

My example is actually a very good argument. Your caviar example is flawed in that you know exactly what you're getting when you buy caviar - it's a fixed commodity - and taste is subjective. A BA's performance can be measured and unless one has actually been through the process, how can you know whether there is value?

I accept that people don't want to try them - and I was once one of those people - but having done both many times I'm in a good position to say that I believe BAs are absolutely worth the money and I'm in a better position to make that call than someone who has only done one or the other. No hard feelings, I accept they're not for everyone.

Also, we are not buyers agents - we only use them

Cheers

 

Here's something different that you may not have considered...

Emotion.

Almost every client I purchase for, despite being an investment 90% of the time, has emotional hurdles.

How many of you have wanted to do something BIG, and then not done it?
...buying $X00,000's worth of property is BIG.

In my experience, most of my clients wouldn't have bought as fast, as well and possibly not at all without the help to check their blind spots and feel comfortable with moving forward.

That being said, not all buyers are like this. For many people though, having a professional buyer/ coach/ trainer/ teacher to help them with the BIG things in life is the best way forward.

To each their own

 

Alright, how about this: If there's a BA that's willing to post all their deals (not just picking their best one) in either Logan QLD, Central Coast NSW, Rockhampton QLD and/or Playford SA, then I'm more than happy to post my purchases and we can compare whether on average I would have been better off using a BA.
I've got 10 IPs, so that should be a sufficient sample size for an analysis.

 

Would love to do this with you if I had bought in any of those areas.

 

Well done @spludgey. Just out of curiosity, did you get any advisory help with these purchases or did you rely on your own research and tips from this forum?

 

Couldn't agree more.
I've only used a BA once, but they taught me so much along the journey. Thanks for being a great teacher @Propertunity

 

Out of people who do BA in those areas on the forum, i can only think of Simon Loo in Logan and Alan Fox in Central Coast. There might be others.

Other thing worth mentioning is that even if they're the same in monetary terms, they're better off than you in terms of time invested.

 

I would use a BA in a market that I don't know much about.

work, business, IPs, families, these are all important.

ppl also needs to put a $ value on their own time as well. nothing wrong with spending time to do own research and learn.

 

See, again, I'd disagree with that. Yes, I've put in a lot of hours, but I've also learnt a lot that I wouldn't have had I used a BA. Would I have learnt things from the BA that I don't currently know? Perhaps, but it would have been less than what I learnt in the process.

 

I somewhat agree with you that people generally have a view one way or the other and are extremely unlikely to change their opinion. I also agree that a sample size of one doesn't prove all that much, only disproving that you're always better/worse (depending on the outcome) off using a BA.

However, my suggestion was serious. I don't claim to be the best investor in the whether it's picking a property or negotiating for the property. But I do think that I am okay at it.
There was an implication that I might have been better off having used a BA for all my purchases and I'm genuinely interested in finding out. I think that the likelihood of that isn't all that high, but it's certainly possible. So if a BA in any of those areas (preferably not Rockhampton, because I admit that I screwed up there. But I'm still happy to go with that too if it's the only option) is even happy to contact me and I'll give them the specifics of what I bought when and for how much and they can then tell me/us whether they made a better purchase and if so by how much.
I think it'd be very interesting.

 

Some people like to go to the gym and do their own thing. Others like to use personal trainers. Not right, not wrong- just different. As long as you’re hitting your fitness goals and happy with your approach, who really gives a toss.

 

This. Doesn’t matter how you get there or how many people did or didn’t help you along the way. What matters is getting there.
My respect to anyone achieving their dreams however they see fit!

 

Could you share details of your BA?

 

For my VIC properties, I used: @JacM