The Phenomenon of the Buyers' Real Estate Agent
EurobodallaBiz
Building your Business
Building our Community
Promote your business on this site with a priority listing
Buyers' Agents
A recent phenomenon in Australian real estate is the 'Buyers’ Agent'. This agent acts for the purchaser, when it has been traditionally accepted that the agent works for the vendor.
The buyers’ agent (usually a former experienced real estate agent in the traditional sense) offers the average buyer a degree of confidence and reassurance not available to her/him before.
Largely the buyer felt then (rightly or wrongly) very much at the mercy of the vendor and the agent, the latter supposedly working with and for the vendor – one against two somehow didn’t seem fair.
Now buyers have an ‘advocate’ and one whom they trust to have the expertise and experience to correctly assess properties, confidently know their way around, and get them the lowest possible purchase price. The buyers’ agent should be especially helpful for people purchasing a home for the first time or new people who don’t know the local market, thus removing much of the stress from the buyer. At least that’s the theory of it.
If the buyers’ agent system works as it should (and the phenomenon can no longer be cynically regarded as some eccentric sortie into people’s pockets that’s come out of the US) then it should level the playing field somewhat.
Paradoxically, the buyer’s agent can positively work for the vendor, indirectly at least, in that he/she should make a ‘professionally based’ offer on a property (assuming the property has been correctly assessed in the first place and the vendor is motivated) that is realistic, and to keep the vendor on side. Otherwise buyers acting on their own, and thinking that they know what they’re doing (when they only think that) by making an offer far too low with only the negative effect of placing the vendor offside.
We are now seeing buyers’ agents on the South Coast & Far South Coast. Over time, it will be interesting to assess their impact on the real estate market in our own area eg. from Batemans Bay to the Border. For example, one could research – over say three months – how many properties have been successfully negotiated for satisfied purchasers (purchasers to whom the buyer agent has carefully listened and secured for them the appropriate property at the lowest possible price).
It seems to me that one advantage the buyers’ agent has is that s/he will get through the often and somewhat bewildering array of agents confronting the inexperienced buyer. Many smaller towns have too many real estate agents.
A perceived disadvantage is that the buyers’ agent doesn’t know other agents’ stock. Good agents know their stock thoroughly and their area; if they haven’t got what the buyer wants, many will conjunct with an agent who does on the basis (if for no other reason) that half a loaf of bread is better than nothing.
The writer is not in the real estate industry. I am a layman, not an agent; however I would think that ‘runs on the board’ and personal testimony from satisfied buyers should be a pretty good indication one way or the other how well the buyers’ agent system is working, just as it is for the ‘traditional’ system.
David Cowley
19 April 2006
02 44721121
(The views expressed in this article are the personal views of the writer alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of any one or other agent listed in this Directory.)
The Stealth Radar Shield is an advanced phone radiation defence system that has been shown to reduce the amount of mobile and cordless phone radio frequency radiation emitted from the earpieces of both cordless and mobile phones. Stealth technology absorbs up to 98% of the radiation emitted from the earpiece areas of wireless and cell phones. Click here
(See article Children & Mobile Phone Use: Is There a Risk?)
Online Shopping:
beauty products: see 'Motives'
(how to use 'Motives')
health and nutrition (incl. weight management)