How not to sell a house

[sqbr]

So Cam and I are looking into buying a house. We first met a guy from Mortgage Choice. He was kind of weird.

We then met a woman from Aussie Home Loans, who was much nicer and suggested a much better sounding loan.

Just now Mortgage Choice guy rang up and asked for Cam. The entire point of his call? To figure out how to format a broken memory card.

I'm pretty sure one of the rules of salemanship is not randomly ringing up potential customers and asking them to do you a favour.

According to Cam it's one of the hazards of telling people you're a computer programmer. Which is unfortunate, since he hates helping people(*). Luckily while having a pure maths major got me lots of random "Omigodgrouptheortyishardandmyassignmentisduetommorrow" emails at uni it's not so bad now :) (That and I learned to say "Sure I'll help you, I charge $30 an hour")

(*)Well, helping them with their computers :)

Comments

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

DO YOU HAVE A REALESTATE AGENT? you may be all "we don't need a stinking real estate agent" but you PROBABLY DO.

[alias_sqbr]

Not currently. I take it they're useful? We've been mainly taking advice on this stuff from Cam's parents.

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I mean, you can get by without an agent, but a good agent can take care of all the things you might not know, and can often sort of tell if the house you want to look at is a dud (so you don't need to go see it), and can help you not get disadvantaged in the process. And it doesn't cost you (the buyer) any extra money, contrary to popular belief. A good agent can also help you accurately read the selling agent, in order to guess the exact minimum amount you can offer and still be accepted.

I realise this explanation is a bit all around the place, so an example: my mum has a client who comes to my mum for all her real estate needs (this client buys and sells a lot). My mum had to go to Malaysia but the client couldn't wait, and went ahead and bought a place (even though mum had told her to wait). The client, in this instance acting as a person with no agent, got screwed by the selling agent. Not in any illegal way, obviously, but she just didn't read the offer properly and was severely inconvenienced.

The flip is that sometimes you're fine without an agent. Msh + Susie seemed to go just fine, but having an agent when we bought our place (in this instance, yes, my mum) saved us at least $20 000.

I don't mean to talk so much about my mum! She's just who I learnt all about real estate off. And she's very successful and has repeat clients, so I believe her. :o)

[alias_sqbr]

HMM.

So, apart from just ringing up your mum, how does one obtain such an agent? My google-fu failed me.

(And thankyou for your advice)

[stephiepenguin.livejournal.com]

Well, you have a look at the local papers, see who is selling interesting looking places, and pick an agency. Which agent (person) you get is usually the luck of the draw. And if you get bad vibes/feel uncomfortable/whatever, you believe those vibes, walk out the door and into the next one.

Or you can ask your friends/family who have bought places if they recommend the agents with whom they dealt.

Or I can give you my mum's details, if you're looking in the Bayswater/Bassendean/Morley/that Midlandish area. At least you know I can vouch for her.