Not hot at all. In fact, its finally raining here Now the 60 Brisbane City Council water-sniffers can have a rest and stop trying to catch the people stupid enough to be running hoses. No argument that the communication between a vendor and auctioneer is fraught with danger, and often unrealistic vendor expectations. We found something we agree on
Given the average vendor sells a house every, what, 5 - 10 years(?), I don't see where they get the skills to be deceptive, only dumb. But if you were selling houses every week on % commission, ... well, I guess that's one way to get the skills. Dave
All of these issues could be dealt with by any owners getting a proper VALUATION of a property before any agents step foot in their homes. Agents are not trained valuers, they can give an appraisal based on what they know about the market. Given that the RPDATA an agent works off can be up to 3 months out of date, and they are working their bums off to get listings (more listings = more chance of a sale) - would you trust an agents appraisal ? Auction clearance rates across Australia are skewed by agents reporting sales outside the auction process. There are only 2 reasons to auction. One is a positive reason - your home is totally unique to an area, and that quality could get you a better price based on emotion.... or.... you need to sell it quickly and you will take ANY price, even if its at a loss. Cheers
I see your point, Wayne, but active agents know recent sales prices (especially if they're buddies with other REA's) and are in a pretty good position to be able to judge a realistic sale price on most properties. After all, most valuers first ports of call when preparing valuations are selling agents. However, this isn't to say that a valuation is a powerful way of allowing potential purchasers to assess the worth of a property. It can mean the difference to a sale, particularly in a slow market.
Hi Jacque... Thanks for replying, a couple of points to note:- 1.) Most agents even within a big franchise office wont talk to each other. The system is setup for them to compete. They lie to their fellow agents as well. The only thing that speaks the truth is published RPDATA which can take up to 3 months after settlement to update. Imagine if a property had a 6 month settlement, then 3 months to update, you are working on 9 month old data. Many a time I have heard agents telling owners... "Oh I sold so and so house down the road for $600,000" then when you look at the real data, the actual sale price was only $520,000 - by then, well everyones forgotten what the discussion was to start with.... but the poor owners now being conditioned down by an agent who just managed to tell a fib better than the last guy...... 2.) An active agent is only the one who spends the most of an owners advertising $$$ to promote themselves.... think about that when you consider how much commission an agent makes on a deal and where the money goes. I saw a gorgeous Mercedes 4WD only yesterday that had an agents head all over it, and huge banners advertising him at Ray White (he was at First National only a month ago) Someones advertising $$$ and Commision $$$ have been spent on resetting his prescence at another agency.... he also includes his head in classified ads in newspapers, with the property details only taking half of the space..... I know he also charges the full price for the advert to the owners of the homes every week.... is this fair? Cheers
