No respect...
 

...had a bit of a day. Our house is on the market, went into the paper last week so we've had a viewing yesterday and one booked for 11.30 today.

9.30 get a phone call - is it possible for people to come at 10.15 instead to save them going all the way back into Bunbury and then back out. OK, I say even though my parents who arrived from the UK on Sunday are still in their night clothes. So we rush about, I put the cats and their bits and pieces in the garage, we go out for the day. Woman turns up with a little girl about 2 and agent does whatever. Get a phone call - yes, she liked it and wants to bring her husband round Friday at the same time.

Next get another phone call - actually could she bring him round today at 2.30. OK I say, so leave the cats in the garage as not much point getting them out only to put them in again. We go for a walk, she turns up this time with the girl and a lad about 5, and her husband turns up in separate car apparently straight from work. Agent does the business.

From the start we told the agent we need $400K minimum, drummed it into him. OK, we will put it on at "From $385K" but $400K is the minimum.

OH gets a phone call about 4pm - an offer!!!!!! :D

For $380K :(

OH says no and dont bother ringing back unless there's a 4 at the front of the figure.

Agent rings back - most they can go to is $390K. So why bother showing them the house in the first place?! :frown:

So I'm a bit p'd off as I'd bent over backwards to let them come earlier and twice in one day while we've spent the whole day out and about and the cats locked in the garage.

Go into DDs room - some of her butterflies have been ripped off the wall and sitting on her change table! :ohmy:

So not only did we bend over backwards to accomodate them as they obviously wanted to see the house, but they let their kid climb the cot and rip them off. And where was the agent when all this was going on?! :confused::frown:

People have no bloody respect :frown::(

Thanks for reading, feels better to get it off my chest.....

Re: No respect...
 

I don't understand what your agent is doing. If you want over $400K for it, you need to put 'Offers over $400K'.
All offers will be 15% under the asking price as standard. A buyer would be stupid not to offer under.

I would have a word with your agent. If you're avoiding the magic number (400) then perhaps you need to make it offers over $399K. Te 399 number is probably psychologically better sounding...

I don't think the possible purchaser can be blamed. The price on the advertising is what everyone's going with.

I agree that it's totally unacceptable to have your stuff ripped like that. Totally not on.
Ask the agent if he's going to pay for the damage from his commission. That should sort him. ;)

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This is the argument we had - we wanted to go "offers over $400"

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At least you got an offer. Not surprised you turned it down though. People think we will accept anything now the market is quieter.
My house is for sale and i am up against hundreds in the same area. No-one is buying though, prices still too high and interest rates going up, up all the time puts people off. If i drop my house price i will be making a loss:ohmy: only lived in this house 20 months. So we need to sell for what it is up for.

Well done anyway, if you have an offer so soon you should sell quickly and for more.

Re: No respect...
 

And his reasoning was.... ?


Is your house priced competitively for the market? Whereabouts are you in that? Higher end, mid range or low?

I realise you're in WA ... are you looking to make a profit?

If you want it in that price range, remember that he's working for you. If you want it increased, tell him you want it done. If he really doesn't think he can sell it over $400K then he needs to be honest with you.

How much advertising has he done? Is it in the paper yet? On the internet?
This costs and he might have made an error and be unwilling to change it due to the advertising as that usually comes out of his commission.

But if you're unhappy, it's pointless.

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So sorry to hear about this, it sounds very stressful and frustrating.

I agree that the damage is totally out of order, and if I were you I'd complain in writing to the agent. Speak to them face to face as well, then hand them the letter which has the same points in writing. I think when it is in writing it means a bit more to them. (And you have it to refer to in the future).

I'd also be firmer in when you allow people in to your home. Obviously you want to sell, but equally they want to buy. Giving you an hours notice is not acceptable at all, and the agent should know this.

In the same letter as the damage, I'd also point out that you are genuinely not going to sell for under $400, therefore you require the advertising to be changed to offers over $399, and you would like all buyers to be screened in advance in order that nobody views the house who cannot afford $399 or over. It doesn't have to be a background financial check, just a verbal enquiry from the agent. THEN if the same things happen again then tell the agent he is wasting your time and if he doesn't sort himself out PDQ then you will be going elsewhere.

I think all too often people are far too nice when selling their houses. If I was doing it again I would 'play hardball' right from day one - not nastiness, but firm and written communication right from the beginning.

Hope the next viewing comes quickly and goes better! :)

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Yes, we are extremely competitive almost to the point of giving the house away. We have found a place we love BUT at the end of the day we will be more than doubling our mortgage and $400K is the very minimum otherwise we cant afford to do it. Houses like ours are on for $420K (one on our very street and without aircon) so it is a good buy.

I have said from now on viewings will be after 4pm so we dont have to rush around - I shant be doing them any favours by allowing viewings at a moments notice and if the house doesnt sell then so be it.

I think he thought we loved this other place so much that if he came up with an offer under $400K then we'd accept it but we told him several times that was the minimum and if we dont get that offer then we will take it off the market and wait a couple of years.

I am going to arrange another viewing of the house we want to buy as I cant help feeling someone's trying to tell me something, IYKWIM :o

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Just make sure you're absolutely clear.

You signed an agency agreement with this agent, so the terms must be in that contract. Check what price you agreed to and make him raise it.

If you're priced to sell he should be working to get as much as humanly possible for you....
So push him to get his finger out.

He wants the commission, right?

Kick ass, Bridie.

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Welcome to the wonderful world of real estate Bridie.

At the moment you $10K apart................ if the property you put the offer on is a direct and your listing is a direct too............... then your chosen one is on a nice little earner. As such.............. he/she should be more than prepared to drop part of their comm as they are on double bubble anyway?

You might have to meet them halfway.............. sounds pretty drastic I know; but........... as we all know only too well it is a buyer's market.

We got a cash offer of $365K on our vacant block in Golf Links Dr at Carramar the first week we had it on the market..................... $365K was what the bank valued it at and banks are usually very conservative re such matters. Like a dill we knocked back the offer and countered at $385K............ the bloke walked and bought land in Mindarie for $470K............... meanwhile we have had bugger all offers since.:eek:

Common sense must prevail................... got an offer of $525K at first home-open on Sunday in Wanneroo.............. that was insulting though as we are asking $630K or thereabouts so fair do's.

Try and crunch your Agent re the comm................ if you can get him/her down to maybe just a couple of grand below your asking price............ then in this still depressed market that might not be such a bad deal?

good luck anyway.


Have pm'ed you re that other real estate related matter.

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I think you're in a difficult position now....if you want $400k then you should be advertising around the $420k mark as well. It's not often you see house price ads showing an increase in price from one week to the next.....what about removing the price and going to Auction....are these common in WA??

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$390 is fairly close Bridie. I would do as Bobcat says and talk to the agent - try and get them to go halves with you - drop their fee $5K and you settle for just $5K short of what you were asking. $5K will be something like $40 per month on the mortgage over 20 years.

Asking the agent to cut the fee may make them work harder on your behalf to get the price up too;)

Re: No respect...
 

Im totally with you on this.

I have had this conversation-argument time and time again.

Fact:
I pay the agents commission no one else !!!
I decide what I want to sell it for, no one else !!!

However, why o farkn why.. do we feel pressurised when the above 2 facts seem to have been forgotten. !!

Ludicrous.

There are many tricks agents use, however the old 2 ears 1 mouth one, seems to be the preferred method. Also so is the silent manouvre... buyers start talking, and agent clams up.. buyer starts to waffle on.. agent still clammed up... buyer crumbles, and starts talkin money !

Its the oldest trick in the book.

Present Price, and SHUT THE FOOK UP !

However. !

Our first agent, similarly to yours, didnt know her arse from her elbow..

We stipulated, Offers OVER x amount.

I then heard her saying in front of me to the buyer, im sure Ste is flexible on price, given that a couple of things need to be done.. which she then went on to say, the drive for instance, I think hes had quotes of 30-40k and the pools not being done !!

I was LIKE OMFG !!! whats going on, i have the only ANTI SALES agent in the world working for me.

PPL who bring their fqn kids round.

Well heres what I say, and some have called me a grumpy old bastard !!

Touch anything , mark it, break it, rip it, drop it. YOU PAY FOR IT !

Kids must be HANDHELD at all times.
SHOES OFF IN MY HOUSE< you may have trod in dogshit !

Anyways lol.. soz I was agreeing with you. I dont think, the parental supervision of children is any worse here than in uk, but it boils my piss, when kids come in and some of their loutish parents and treat your HOME as a fqn MEAT MARKET at rush hour !

Tell your agent, the Price of the house is as thus:( unfortunately you have exposed your bottom line )

But anyway...

Price of house. $420k with upto 21k discount for 14 day unconditional, and 6 week contract settlement.
The discount will vary dependant on buyers circumstances, and is at sellers discretion.

That should bring you to 399k which seems more than 1k cheaper than 400k and so phsycologicaly works !

Give it a whirl !

Re: No respect...
 

Real Estate agents are the scum of the earth.

Re: No respect...
 

Agree that agents sometimes have their priorities misplaced. :mad: and they're usually just after a quick sale to earn their commission.

We have just put ours on the market (the photo's are being done tomorrow) and we have told the agent we are in no hurry to sell....we're in it for the long haul we know ;) as we know it's a buyers market out there.

We stipulated that we will only have a few home opens, then it will be by appointment only and we will show the people round. I'm not having any old scutter traipsing through my house and touching our stuff. Can't you make sure you do the viewings in future? That way you can follow the buggers around and watch what they're doing.

Re: No respect...
 

We had similar happen - they allowed the children to walk over our cream carpet with dirt and grass (causing abnormal damage to the carpet). They also did not stop the kids drawing on the walls in our daughters room.

We immediately took digital photos. called the agent out and got a reduction in the fee equivalent to the £500 worth of damage.

Initially he was reluctant until I said next time my wife, I and our daughter have severe gastric flu we will be popping in the office - hope we dont have an accident :sneaky:.

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Quite, in this case (and in general) there is very little incentive for the agent to hold out for that $10k the OP wants/needs. It might earn the agency an extra $250 commision and the agent themselves a fraction of that. Say they got half, then the $125 wouldn't be worth having compared to the effort involved in marketing the property for x more weeks til the seller gets the result they want. The agent will try and talk you into accepting an offer they know fine well is below your minimum.

It would be a very different story if the agent was selling their own house!!

Re: No respect...
 

Just to put the other side of the argument (not the real estate agents - wouldn't ever defend them!)....

The old adage that it's only worth what the market will pay.....

2 years ago, you could have put the house on the market at $400K and you would have had people gazumping each other - bidding up the price of your house.

If you've not had many offers at what you want, it suggests (and this sounds harsh) that either it isn't being marketed properly or you are asking too much.

If you bought 2 years ago, surely you must have made quite a bit - especially in the first year? What did you pay for it?

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I agree, but I get the impression that in this case the OP needs the $400 in order to finance their onward purchase. Which of course would open up the option of asking their vendor whether they could go down $5k in the interest of a quick sale.
When I sold our house we were forced to reduce the price the day before we all moved! because our buyers had been shafted by their buyers. Quite why we had to cop the cost I do not know! But we desperately wanted the entire episode to be over with so we caved in in exchange for finally getting some peace of mind!

Re: No respect...
 

There's an interesting one going on in my road involving a $1.5million house.
Settlement due this week. Buyers now want to delay until June - meanwhile vendors have a bridging loan!!

It looks likely that the buyers will withdraw.

Re: No respect...
 

Ouch, bridging loan! :eek: I don't think I'd ever have the guts to do that when it depended on something so out of my control. Takes some confidence to do that - hope it works for them!

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You would think they'd be potentially losing at least a $75k deposit??

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Interesting one - as the buyers haven't technically pulled out yet, can the vendors call it off and keep the deposit? Could they split the deposit 50/50 if the vendors called it off in response to unreasonable behaviour on the part of the purchasers?
If the sellers had the confidence to do it, I'd recommend them passing on the cost of the bridging loan to the purchasers - if they want to wait until June that's fine, it will cost $xxxx per month for the bridging loan. Otherwise bugger off!
(But I suppose it's not so easy to shift a $1.5m house... ah the burden of being a millionaire! :()

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If the settlement date is being postponed, by the buyer, then you can charge the buyer on a daily basis,+ costs.

We had similar situation, and recovered over 10k back

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$10000!!

Sometimes I can't understand the confidence that all involved in real estate have. Low doc loans, taking on mortgages which are higher than the UK and yet with a lower salary, accepting small deposits, buying with the use of loans whilst awaiting settlement...

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Dependant upon what is stipulated in the actual O & A re additional clauses; buyers could be sued for specific performance if they pull out........... or they can be charged penalty interest if they are in default re settlement not occurring following the 3 working days grace period granted?

Re: No respect...
 

I thought we were much lower than that....................... :eek:

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Well according to Bob Druitt, there's loads of activity at this price point....

As for what they'll do - I gather than legal action is in the pipeline...

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Sorry Bobcat - I didn't post that but have similar sentiments - you are the one shining light! Your posts on here give me some hope that you'll find redemption (as a charity worker)!!

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Beat me to it.

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Huh? They accepted a $10k deposit on a $1.5m property???? Alarm bells should be ringing straight away!

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Don't ask me - I'm a real novice. I don't even own a house here...!!

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Let me change that for you if you want?

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There could be only one person left on the planet and 500,000 houses standing in Perth and that guy would still say the market was bouyant!

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Hahahaha! See you never stop working do you?

Shouldn't you be out on the streets swindling old ladies out of their investments?


Seriously - we may buy at the end of this year. Strong Aus dollar, good UK tenant who wants to stay in our house for at least another 18 months, weak UK housing market and rising interest rates here means that we are in no rush to sell our house over there just yet.

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I reckon he should be charged with reckless endangerment.

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Tell it like it is.................. it's buoyant my ass. :blink:

A little bit of movement; marginal improvement................ but still lacking in the genuine buyer department.

Loads of dreamers and tyre kickers out there............. but lacking somewhat re fair dinkum serious buyers...............

Exception to the rule being in the top shelf department because as a rule those people are talking cash anyway so interest rate hikes have little or no effect on suchlike.

Re: No respect...
 

Have to stop working here now.................. got appointments to keep so it's back to the day/night job................. the missis would still prefer it if i was to get as she puts it......"A proper job?"

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This is interesting:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/bu...d7f&ei=5087%0A

Wonder if it will spark a deluge of cases, and force agents to be a little more careful?

Re: No respect...
 

Bob - question for you.

Does REIWA put any pressure on individual agents to distort the market?

e.g. price fixing on commission, always talking the market up, inflating rentals to push people into buying? etc etc

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Absolutely not.............. no, not at all. Any such Agent who did would surely be shooting themselves in the foot?

Since deregulation came into effect several years ago............ our fees have always been negotiable.

Unfortunately it is a well known hard and fast fact that rentals are skyrocketing; Agents wouldn't have to make that up as Blind Freddie can see same.

At the end of the day our business is built on referrals and repeat business; obviously if we were to do the wrong thing by our clients we wouldn't see them again!

By the same token we aren't miracle workers either.............. if the market is flat............. it's flat and there's not a lot we can do about it; so occasionally some properties won't sell for whatever reason. Usual reasons are location and asking price.

Right now there's a lovely property on the market in Tapping............ nothing wrong with the house at all............. it's a cracker............. a real belter yet it's been on the market for just over 13 months........... and with a mainstream top Agent at that........... followed subsequently by another mainstream top Agent............. yet it's still on the market........ and no-one can answer why?

Have to sign off now............ day time job beckons.