How real estate agents cheat: a Private buyer trick
Yesterday I found this piece of paper in my mail box:
It was an A6 sized photocopy of a hand-written note. I must admit that the author knows how human visual perception works these days. It is quite obvious that a person who is going to buy a house can afford a computer and printer; or, at least, having access to a copy machine, this person could have access to a computer to type the letter. Despite this, we have a copy of a handwritten note, because the author knew that a printed note is much more likely to be thrown away with the rest of junk mail. The handwritten things attract more attention these days than anything printed. Secondly, it gives an impression that the author made an effort and spent some time to write the letter, so now it obliges us to read it. Finally, hand-made appearance strengthens an impression of things being truly private, genuine and natural.
As a curious person who loves to study life and hates dirty tricks, I simply entered the phone number into the Google search and got the following result:
As it can be seen, the “private cash buyer” has turned into a real estate agent. The piece of paper was just a real estate agents’ trick to obtain potential sellers’ details and then implement the rest of their cheating methods.
Would you like to trust your house to people who cheat like this? I certainly would not.
It is one more warning to all sellers and buyers: be careful! Be aware of tricks before they are applied to you.
Make use of Google and other search services. Of course, other real estate agents can be smarter and slyer, so the lack of phone numbers in the Google search results cannot guarantee anything, but it is one more little measure to protect yourself.
Try to avoid agents. Talk to others, ask your friends and family members, spread word of mouth that you want buy, sell, rent or lease a property. A private deal is always cheaper for both the buyer and the seller. Because in this case you don't need to feed an agent or agency that can play tricks on both buyers and sellers.
Make use of websites like www.gumtree.com.au or www.noagentproperty.com.au. From my personal experience: I have found two nice landlords via www.gumtree.com.au who I rented my houses from, one after another. It was cheaper than through agencies, the properties were much better looked after, and any problems were fixed much faster because I contacted the owner of the property directly and the owner does care. You only have to be very careful and not to get trapped by frauds. Here are a few rules for a rental accommodation online search that I have developed while I was looking:
- If an ad looks like it is from a reals estate website, search a quoted line from this ad in Google. Often you can find an original ad on a real estate website. Swindlers just copied the ad.
- If a price looks too good to be true, then it most probably is a fraud.
- If an owner of an Australian property says that he/she is currently outside of Australia, it is a fraud.
- If an owner cannot show you the property before you accept the offer, it is a fraud.
If you do need to use an agent, ask people you trust to recommend a decent real estate person or agency. And, of course, you should be extremely cautious when you are buying or selling. Big money is very often accompanied by big lie. For you selling or buying a house may be the deal of your life, but for some “specialists” it is just a daily routine, an addition to their monthly salary. They can talk you into anything that brings them their commission faster or increase it, they will finalise your case and move to another one tomorrow, and you will be the one left with the house and the lifetime mortgage.
22 July 2009
Australia |