Thinking of using a Buyer's Advocate / Agent? DON'T!!! A tragic tale of deception and woe.

You might be right.

http://www6.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/legis/vic/consol_act/sola1962100/s32.html

Statement of matters affecting land being sold

(1) A vendor under a contract for the sale of land must give to a purchaser, before the purchaser signs the contract, a statement signed by the vendor that contains the matters and attaches the documents specified in this Division.

 

I met with them face to face after my day job on Fri 26/10 at 2pm. I had to work at my 2nd job at 10pm that night, so needed to get some sleep having worked the night before (12 hours) with only 1 hours' sleep. Will shoot you a PM, am also interested to know which BA's you have used.

Right now, 598k for what I am seeking, maybe, maybe not. I am renting on a month by month basis, there is no pressure on me to vacate my current tenancy. I am in no rush to buy a decent property and can bide my time. I felt this property was very appealing as it is convenient for my partner's work location. And the suburb as a whole is very nice, albeit a little far out from CBD. The other issue is the ethics involved. That's what stirs me up about it all.

 

In my experience, there is always another property just around the corner.

There is no such thing as an absolute unique property.

 

at the time it always feel like it is the only property out there that ticks the boxes, but there are always more you just haven’t found them yet

 

I had an ordinary experience too with my $13K BA. It starts rosy, then as time goes on, depending on your luck of what properties happen to be on market at the time, the BA starts selling and pressuring. Whether intentionally or subconciously, they just want to get the deal done, work on another client and more commission. If it costs you 10-20K more so be it. Its like they are the sellers agent and you're the idiot for questioning. If I was the seller's agent I'd love to get the interest from a BA, motivated buyer. I had something pop up in the independent inspection report during cooling off period, something that the BA couldn't have missed but later waved off as not important as to the reason why they didn't say anything earlier. It was an intense few days when they were convincing me I couldn't pull out without a 'real reason' as it wasn't like the sellers were hiding this. And there was no possibility of renegotiating price (BA didn't even want to try)
In the end, as I still did like the property overall, the deal went through and it rented out at decent rate quite quickly. Time will tell on result. But I definitely did not get a bargain and its left a bad taste for the whole process.
Icing on cake was when BA had the audacity in their call, right after cooling period, and say how they were worried I wasn't enjoying the process, be happy goddamitt (!) whilst not taking any accountability on how they dealt with the whole thing (I get they won't admit being unprofessional or incompetent).

 

Otie can you PM me with the BA you used?

 

G'day Bill, how did you go? Whilst I agree with Simon that it's not fair to make a sweeping statement on a whole industry I certainly understand your frustration. The barrier to entry to this industry are very very low and so there are a lot of cowboys out there, which is why it makes a lot of sense to look to organisations like REBAA who vet their members and hold them accountable.

There are a lot of genuine buyers advocates as well who have built their entire business by doing the right thing by their client as they are legally obliged. It may seem like a one off deal to a buyer, but good buyers agents know that if they buy well for investors they are much more likely to come back and be in position to buy again. As Simon says, most buyers advocates rely on word of mouth referral so again if they're in it for the long term they will look after you carefully.

When choosing an advocate/agent it really pays to do your own due diligence on them too as its a lot of trust which is why I think REBAA is an obvious starting point to at least narrow the list down. I also personally would never choose a buyers advocate who did not quote a transparent fixed fee upfront. Quoting a percentage based fee is only fine for a selling agent but is a complete conflict of interest for a buyers advocate who should be trying to get the lowest price and not incentivised to do the opposite.

Best of luck.

 

So how did you go Bill? Did you make a decision to proceed or pull the pin on the deal? I think we are all keen to hear what happened if you don’t mind sharing.

 

@Bill Murray I am sorry to hear of your experiences and hope that everything gets resolved in the coming days (if it hasn't been done so already) Without being privy to all the facts, documentation and evidence it is tricky to state an opinion here, however it's never nice when you feel as though you have been unfairly pressured with the purchase of property.

Though I understand your bitterness, I must agree with others here that it's futile to paint all BAs with the same brush here. Having been heavily involved in the BA world for some 13 years now (as well as being REBAA President) of course I know there's some cowboys out there- just like every industry. I do hope a suitable outcome is reached for you soon.

 

Hi Bill

We’ve bought a few properties over the last few years and I don’t think we’ve ever been asked to sign a blank contract .

I hope everything gets sorted out .

There are good BA’s around and there are several on the forum who have been members of the community here for many years and have earned nothing but praise .

However I’ve also passed on properties in Brisbane which the agent ( who I know well ) assured me would sell quickly via one of the BA’s who operated in the local area as it had a “ good “ return .
The good return was artificially high as the owner was renting it privately to someone with a bad rental history . There were so many issues with the property that I thought it needed 30-40 k to fix them . Who ever bought that through a BA was going to get some nasty surprises ...

Cliff

 

In my opinion, any service provider in Aus should be considered dodgy by default before evaluating and trusting them. I am surprised by the dishonesty levels and how everyone wants a quick buck. It took me a while to understand why business are so conservative when hiring new people.