Questions to ask a Real estate agent when buying?

hi,

I'm looking a couple of properties recently and I was wondering what are some good questions to ask the real estate agent to get more information on the property, surrounding suburbs and price?

Some that I use are:
how long has this property been on the market?
Has the seller had any offers yet and how much?
can you give me more information on this suburb?
 
I'm looking a couple of properties recently and I was wondering what are some good questions to ask the real estate agent ...
IMO, you should never ask a REA a Q that you do not already know the answer to....with the possible exception of "why are the vendor's selling?" and even then do not expect the truth.:rolleyes:

You should not be seeking knowledge from a REA ;)
 
Year built
Is it subject to a lease agreement? How much and how long.
Are there any known encumbrances on the property?
How big is the land, what is the equivalent living area of the house?
Council rates and water rates?
What are the vendors preferences for settlement.
when are you presenting offers?
what is your criteria for submitting an offer?
Heating, cooling, pest inspection details.

With question number 2, as an agent I would never tell purchases how much others have offered. But I would say if I've had offers and how many, and I would say that the vendor has knocked back offers around the $380,000 mark so it don't waste your time unless it is over x amount...
 
Yeah I agree, I have had vendors selling because they are getting divorced, lost their jobs, facing bankruptcy, having a baby and want to release debt to stay home, lost money on the share market, spouse has died, getting into bigger projects etc...

I would only relay the information to a buyer if it is positive otherwise I feel like I am betraying the vendors trust and passing on information that really does not concern anyone and certainly does not help the purchaser make a buying decision. If the information is personal ie divorce etc I would say "for a personal reason"
 
I really like Xenia's response. Why? Because they're not normal questions.

REA can always smell a nervous or new buyer, but if you ask different questions they'll get confused.

You can ask the simpler questions once you have the agents around your little finger.
 
LOL skater. what is the benefit of a confused agent? We need to be clear so that we can work with genuine purchasers.

I don't mind nervous, I can take a purchaser by the hand through the whole process and even direct them to getting finance etc. What we don't want is time wasters and contracts that fall through.
 
IMO, you should never ask a REA a Q that you do not already know the answer to....with the possible exception of "why are the vendor's selling?" and even then do not expect the truth.:rolleyes:

I agree with this entirely. The purchase I just made, in fact, I hardly even spoke to the agent until it came down to negotiation. I did all my homework (usual things like comparable sales for price, council for a few questions etc. but also including as far as Facebook'ing the vendors - yep I found some things out this way ;) ) myself, as even if I did ask the agent questions, I wouldn't rely on the response so figured not much point. I am am still fairly novice in the real estate buying, so prefer to just keep my mouth shut so I don't come across like a novice. I think if I keep my cards close to my chest, they don't know what's going on in my head.
 
I didn't mean confused as in you don't know what to say/do confused at how upfront someone is and that they're not asking the general "How long has it been on the market?" or "Why are they selling?".

Don't get me wrong, as an agent myself it's always best when people are clear as it allows me to know exactly what they mean, and a course of action :)

Plus i was more so talking about dodgy agents, rather than the better ones (whom are usually the exception) that will help out each step of the way :)
 
Great conversations above. In the past, a real estate agent primarily represented the seller. While the real estate agent helped with buying a home, she always gave the seller's interests first priority. This gave the seller an advantage over potential home buyers.

Not IN THE PAST.

The real estate agent DOES represent the seller. They do give the sellers interests first priority. If they aren't they aren't doing the job they are paid for. They are paid by the seller to get them the highest price they can.

If you want someone to represent YOUR best interests get a buyers agent.
 
What we don't want is time wasters

Interesting term, time wasters. I'd never heard it before returning to Australia - as it applied to potential buyers.

What's the difference between someone being a time waster and someone doing due diligence?
 
The real estate agent DOES represent the seller. They do give the sellers interests first priority. If they aren't they aren't doing the job they are paid for. They are paid by the seller to get them the highest price they can.

Whilst that's true in theory, I've bought plenty of times where the agent has worked against the interests of the seller and in favour of my interests.

On the odd occasion they even realise they are doing so! ;)

...and I agree that they aren't then doing the job they are paid for.
 
I have been known to timewaste occasionally :)

One of these times someone else came off the better for it. The place was advertised at $160k. This was the church I looked at a while ago - coolest place ever, would be fantastic if it was fixed up, but totally unusable in its current state, not much better than land with a shed (land value would be $60k). Other half said it would be too expensive ... but anyhoo, I asked if they'd (they being God, since it was a church and all) take $90k and the agent was an instant no no no, but I'll see how low they'll go and get back to you.

They never got back to me but the next day the listing online changed to $140k.

A few months later it dropped again to $110k. Getting awfully close to my initial $90k, eh?

It just sold, we'll see what RPdata picks it up for in due course :rolleyes:
 
Interesting term, time wasters. I'd never heard it before returning to Australia - as it applied to potential buyers.

What's the difference between someone being a time waster and someone doing due diligence?

REA's would classify time wasters as those without finance or intention to seriously buy. Then there's the nosey neighbours who pop into the OFI to check out the place, the buyers who view opens as light entertainment on a Saturday and the buyers who've been looking for more than 12mths every Saturday and have never made an offer (seriously).
 
On the opposite side of the coin - as a BA, have you had clients like this?

Hi Dave

Buyers who claim to have been searching for years usually haven't, when it comes down to it. Upon more specific questioning, its often more common to discover that they've been looking "on and off" for a long period, or have had a spurt of Saturday OFI's but never made an appointment otherwise (not a reliable strategy!). However, to answer your question, yes I have had a few clients over the years who have suffered from Analysis Paralysis and simply couldn't progress from Step 1 (looking) to Step 2 (offering) - employing a BA speeds up both the process and their confidence and they also gain the benefit of seeing more suitable property, rather than it being a little hit and miss.

I once, however, turned a client down back in 2006 because she'd been looking for 4 years (and had 3 filled scrapbooks to prove it!) and was ultimately so fussy and removed from the reality of buying that I knew I would be wasting my time. Incidentally, I heard from another BA that she ended up engaging their services for a 6 mth contract period, didn't buy anything and is still looking today- there are some people who simply won't take action, no matter what the circumstances.
 
We bought our house on a complete snap decision. We'd seen it listed for sale for ages (at least a year) at an out of whack price, just decided one day to actually go look at it, and put an offer in same day.

I don't think we asked the agent much ... he was quite forthcoming. He gave us a copy of the HIA order as he was legally obliged, told us some previous offers had a clean pest and structural inspection, told us it had *had* several previous offers but none as low as ours, told us the size of the block (he hadn't realised it was subdivisible, it wasn't in the ad) and warned us that the vendor was notoriously slow.

We had a look at another house the same day. That agent is brilliant - we were looking around the other house boggling at the amazing state of damp, mould, salt damp, staining and general disrepair. One internal wall was covered with a curtain - I asked why and he wordlessly pulled back the curtain to reveal MASSIVE salt damp to about 5 feet up the wall. He told us about the large drainage easement on the block (which precluded dividing it into 4 despite being advertised as a potential subdivision), that he had been recommending the owner demolish the house and sell it as vacant land, and he told us he thought the owner had the price far too high (it was about $70k - 60% - overpriced). Probably too honest for his own good, but he didn't need to say anything really - the condition of the house spoke for itself. It was since condemned by council and withdrawn from the market.

Incidentally we have two main agents in this town, and *this* agent sets his prices lower but his listings sell much faster and closer or at exactly what they are listed for. He does better ads too. The other agent's prices are all over the place, as are his sales, which can be up to 50% different to his original asking price.
 
I'm a serious buyer looking for the right property to buy, I don't like wasting my time and their time.

Here's my approach, the REA is a salesmen, his got his interest with himself and the seller, not me. So any information I get from them is usually sugar coated or exaggerated. So i don't believe them, his giving me information and I'm waiting for them to slip up... see if they say something they shouldn't have.

I went to see 2 properties recently and asked the following questions:
*How long as the property been on the market? "it's been on for 4 months because the finance fell through". Very honest answer

The 2nd agent was dishonest, he said 2 weeks... I've seen that advert on there for the apartment for close to 2 months...

*Any offers on the property as yet?
advertised price on property with the 1st REA was 460k, I got 430k as a answer from him straight away.

advertised price property with 2nd agent was 389k, he told me it was lowered to 360k and again I wasn't interested in the property...

So I'd like to be straight forward with the person, my approach might be different if i actually was interested in the property.

These are all great questions BTW
 
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