Real Estate Advice

Buyers Beware - Real Estate Advice That Can Save You Thousands

By Tim Stokes

If you’re buying a home for the first time, here’s some advice that may shock you: don't trust real estate agents. Why? Because they're going to lie to you.

Last week I came across a situation where it was quite obvious that the buyer had been lied to - just in a subtle way - to aid the agents cause to get a better price for the seller.

The agent told the buyer that they had "just sold a house down the road for $390,000, which was a good indication of the market for the area."

The buyer told me about this offhand remark by the agent. I asked the buyer what the address of that property was because it didn't appear in the statistics that I had - it is important for valuers to have as up to date information on sales as possible.

The buyer didn't know the address because the agent wasn't that specific - it was just kind of, you know, "up the road".

Well as it transpired I thought this buyer was paying a little too much for this property. However, I wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing something - namely the detail on "the property up the road" - which may have justified what the buyer was paying.

I rang the agent and asked them about "the property up the road". What was the address? When did you sell it? What was it like in comparison?

You have probably guessed the answer already. There was no "property up the road".

Well, not entirely true. The property up the road was one that had sold two months earlier, by an entirely different real estate agency. I already had it as a sale on my statistics.

The agent had decided that they had sold it, a couple of weeks earlier, and that this little white lie was an acceptable negotiation ploy against the naive first home buyer.

Whats the lesson here?

If an agent tries to pass off information to you of a generalised nature - STOP - AND GET THE FACTS.

Ask for :

• the address,
• what date it sold,
• and get a detailed description of what it was like inside and out.

Get a pen out and write down what the agent says to you. This will probably scare the hell out of them - but it will keep them honest. And it will show that you are not a pushover and will only deal in facts.

This article is used with kind permission from Homewardfound.co.nz, a resource of free articles and information for first home buyers and newbie investors.
Visit www.homewardfound.co.nz for more information.