Pros and Cons of having Buyer's Agent

Just trying to understand Pros and Cons of having Buyer's Agent from the experienced users here.

 

The search function on PC is great - put in Buyers Agent or similar terms and you will see previous discussions that may provide info for you

eg
Buyers Agent

Buyers agent

 

Pros - easy and maybe a cracker deal

Cons - cost money

 

One thing that (uninformed) buyers/users of BAs may find is that they be tempted to say find me a house for $x. Using a BA does not take away the buyer's need to understand why they are buying a property and what sort of property they need. Reading the threads talking about BAs, will reveal more of this discussion.

 

I just bought my first house (PPOR) with one a month back.

The most valuable part of it all was they ended up steering me into a completely different geographic area than where I said I wanted. They figured out from my long shopping list what I actually really wanted and it seems I was looking in the wrong place. Without that I'm sure I'd be hating where I live right now and I feel like I'm in paradise.

As for the rest of the service

Pros
- Much more impartial than I could have been when assessing places. Often when I saw something online or in person I liked they'd point out why I wouldn't actually like it and they were always right. In some respects they knew me better than I did.
- I never had to talk to real estate agents which I hate doing.
- No buyers remorse- I over analyse everything and knowing I had an expert to validate my choice as being a good buy made the whole thing a lot less stressful.
- They took some extra steps I wouldn't have thought of such as interviewing neighbours and local shop keepers to try and find out why it was really for sale (secret break up), was it a good place to live etc and used that information to tailor the strategy.
- A lot of the properties we looked at weren't listed, so less competition.
- They had good relationships with a lot of selling agents who would give them tip offs about properties coming up for sale they thought would suit my needs. He made sure they knew I'd paid a deposit and he'd verified my finance was in order so I wasn't tire kicking, I think that helped as well.

Cons
- Taking a big chunk out of a first home deposit is a tough decision to make! That extra money could have geared me into a more expensive property. If its going to be worth it would be totally different for each person.
- Sometimes its hard hearing things you don't want to hear (There were various times I got annoyed when I was told to rule out areas where I wanted but probably couldn't afford, or to reduce my search area to less suburbs etc). Occasionally I would shift that annoyance to my agent but it was really just frustration with the Sydney market being so unaffordable.
- My job is analysis focused so some of the work they did for me I could have done a better job myself (and believe me I would double check everything and pick holes in parts and send through colour coded spreadsheets which must have driven them insane but they took it all in their stride).

Overall I am glad I used one and have no regrets. The main value I got out of it was helping find me the right place to live and closing the deal when we found the perfect one before it had a chance to get to auction. That was a very stressful day for me and we spent hourssss on the phone talking through the strategy and pricing and everything so I was completely confident when it went through. Oh and they steered me away from one I was completely in love with and turned out to be a disaster (was getting close to having emotion take over reason on that because I loved it but had a lot of obscured building defects I'd be struggling to afford to fix for years).

The purchase itself was a masterpiece they figured out the views were substantially better than the marketing alluded to and did all their due diligence between the Thursday night listing and the Saturday morning inspection including getting the contract reviewed. We showed up to first open house with building and pest inspector and made an offer minutes after before anyone else got a chance. I think it worked in my favour it was misty and pouring with rain so no one else saw what a stunning outlook there was. When they did the courtesy call to other buyers no one else was anywhere near ready to put in a counter offer. He was very good at hustling that and playing all the various psychological games buyers agents know and I've got no doubt they would have got a much better price if they chose to wait longer or let it go to auction.

Anyway long story short- it was worth it for me, but not in the ways I expected. I think a highly motivated analytical person could do the grunt work themselves and anyone can call agents and tell them what you're looking for but not sure about the artform that is the buying game itself. Ironically negotiating contracts with a lot more zeros on the end is part of my job so I thought I'd be good at that part but so glad I didn't try as it's different it's your family home.

Good luck whichever way you go!

 

Great write-up, thanks @LouiseJ . It's always great hearing the elements of the process and your thoughts and emotions as you went through it. Glad you like where you have ended, with a PPoR (in Sydney I take it from your write-up?)

 

Thought i'd share my recent experience. Engaged a full service BA that will help with sourcing, negotiating, bidding, valuation etc. Gave them a few suburbs and criteria for a family home and price range. Got all excited as it felt like there was someone on 'my' side that will have access to the 'off-market' deals etc. Most of the properties we were shown were ones that I had already seen on realestate.com.au
Now, the search ended pretty quickly as the property I liked was on the market very soon after engaging them and eventually got it at auction. Who knows if there was alot of conditioning to budget for a certain price range that will pretty much guarantee getting it.
In the valuation report, they would give a few price brackets indicating, below, market, above. Looking back, they did open my eyes on how comps should be assessed but this info could all be sourced online (on PC and REA sites).

I was a little surprised / happy / annoyed that the whole process ended so quickly (for the fee paid..). I won't know if it was 'worth it' but it did remove some of the mind games that REA would have played against amateurs. End of the day, secured the property that stood out.

 

Yep I ended up in Grays Point, Sutherland Shire. I was looking in Riverview, Padstow, Belmore, Lakemba etc because I just drew a ring from the CBD and then punched in my price bracket and hadn't considered the Shire. But I just love my place now, overlooking the river, surrounded by bushland, birds and some friendly feral deer, best neighbours ever. Can't imagine living anywhere else and got so much more bang for buck in that area with my big two storey brick house. To be honest I'd never even heard of the place before.
Two ticks for buyers agent.
I imagine most people looking already know exactly where they want to live, I just knew how much money I could borrow and that I needed to be able to get to the city for work so it was pretty much open season from there.