Are all estate agents made equal.
You know. Most people don’t have to deal with estate agents very often in their daily life. They might just have. One, two or three times where they are a buying or selling a house.
Perhaps their 1st house, then on to a bigger house and then finally down size to their final house.
So in your lifetime over a period of maybe 50 years you would probably only ever have 3 encounters with estate agents. And most people believe that the estate agent knows what they’re doing and essentially they should because they are the professionals, that’s their job. Right?
They should know everything that is happening and what the processes are .
They should be able to guide you, especially if you are not experienced in this process yourself.
The reality is that maybe. 25% of the estate agents staff the actually do have that experience and do know what they’re doing and talking about.
So when you put your trust or your hopes in that sales agent it can be quite dangerous if you hit the 75% of them not good at the job.
Here’s an example.
I am selling a property at the moment and I have had a couple of viewings.
One of the viewing couples has decided that they would like to put an offer on the property.
The estate agent phones me up to say that they liked the house and that they are cash buyers and therefore they want to put in an offer of slightly below the asking price.
Now. I thought, OK, let’s have a think about that. I went back and actually said no, I don’t want to go that low, I’ll meet you halfway. I had already priced the property to sell quickly at a slightly lower price than similar ones in the area.
Let’s say for example, the difference was £10,000 .
I said if they increase the amount by £5,000 we have got a deal.
The estate agent took that back to the purchaser or the viewer and they agreed to purchase it for that little bit extra.
Now I at this point said, OK, I’m happy to accept that increased offer, r as long as you can confirm that they are a cash buyer.
I asked him the question:
Have you checked they are actually a cash buyer?
He said ,”Oh yes, they are definitely a cash buyer. They sold their house a year ago.”
I said, “have you actually seen the money in their bank account or the proof that they have access to those funds and they can get that money transferred to a solicitor within two to three working days?”
The answer I got back was no!!
So I asked, how can you tell me they’re a cash buyer?
I would like you to go away and to check that.
So he went away to check.
Now it turns out that the fact is they sold their house a year ago, a house they were going on to buy had fallen through and the buyer of their house has actually waiting for them, to find a new property because they still want to buy their house.
The offers been accepted and they’re happy to go forward, but this is over a year ago.
Now what this means is the seller has basically said they would be a cash buyer, but they’re not a cash buyer at this moment in time because they haven’t sold their property.
They are still in what’s normally called a chain.
Being in a chain means they are reliant on someone buying their house before they can buy another house, which effectively puts them in the chain.
Now I don’t know whether the person buying their house is also reliant on someone buying their house at their end making the chain longer,
In this situation everything can take much longer because of the reliance on the others in the chain moving to completion (actually selling, handing over the keys)
In a chain, anything can go wrong with any one of those people in the chain, and that makes a difference to your my sale actually going through quickly and smoothly.
Someone in the chain could effectively drop out because of someone else lower down in the chain dropping and so on.
My point here is that not all estate agents are experienced or clever enough to understand or confirm the facts..
I did speak to a lady in the estate agents who I’ve worked with for many years and I did say to her , you need to talk to this guy, your sales agent, and explain to him what a cash buyer really is because to tell me there a cash buyer when they’re not a cash buyer is very misleading.
I wonder how many times is he doing this to other people and they just accepting what he’s saying and they get so far down the line that they’re about to buy their new house that they move onto knowing that their property has been sold to somebody who can buy it outright, only to find out that actually that’s not the case and the whole chain falls down. They lose their new property, and they lose the sale of their current property.
It’s well worth spending some time with the estate agents, getting to know them, find out what experience they have.
But most of all, you must check, check, check and double check that what they’re saying is true.
In this particular case, I have said I would be happy. To move forward, if it’s a very small chain, so for example there’s only one other person in the chain, so there’s one person waiting to buy the persons house that’s waiting to buy my house. That’s a very small change. I’m happy to move forward.
What I might also say, in this instant, and it’s something that you’re quite entitled to do, is that I’m happy accept the offer however, I’m going to leave the property on the market. If someone else comes along and decides to buy it and buy it quicker and is a cash buyer and doesn’t have to sell something, then I reserve the right to move to them.
Not the nicest thing to do for the person who’s buying, I get that. But for me, it’s a business and it’s the way I have to work because I can’t rely on the good faith and the good nature of other people who I have no experience or control over how they’re going to do things.
It’s disappointing that. Estate agents or Sales agents are a bit like this because they’re just so keen to get the property sold that they don’t really consider the person or the people involved in buying and selling circumstances and how it affects them if things do go wrong. That they don’t take the time to do their due diligence and make sure what their information they’re passing on is correct and accurate.
Now like I said not all are like this , about 25% are excellent . The remaining 75% need to have the facts checked.
So you, as a property investor, need to check, check, check and check again to make sure that all of these things that you’ve been told are correct and accurate.