Vendor Advocacy

Hi,

I am planning to sell my townhouse in Brisbane. Has anyone used vendor advocacy? If yes - can you please share your experience (positive and negative), any recommendation?

I also saw www.onehome.com.au (sell within 21 days) - anyone has used their services? Can you please share your experience?

Thank you in advance.

Is a vendor advocate an agent in disguise? An agent is your advocate alrwady.

Scott No Mates said:

Is a vendor advocate an agent in disguise? An agent is your advocate alrwady.

Click to expand...

In theory only

Always wondered what a vendors advocacy does??

A Vendor's Advocate (VA), would normally:
1. Help calculate the market worth of a vendor's property.
2. Interview several local area selling agents for the job of selling a vendor's home for the highest price on the best terms & conditions for the vendor.
3. Appoint a selling agent after this process and negotiate the selling agent?s commission & other fees (advertising etc).
4. Be an interface between the selling agent and the vendor ? this prevents the agent from "crunching the vendor" and getting vendors to drop their price, just so the agent can make a sale (and a commission).
5. Vet throughly, any offers that buyers make through the selling agent and help negotiate the price and terms & conditions on the vendor's behalf.
6. Report on a minimum weekly basis, what has been happening with inspections, buyer feed-back, offers etc.
7. Help get the vendors property exchanged and follow the process through to settlement to make sure it happens as smoothly as possible.

My own concerns about Buyers Agents (BA) offering a Vendor Advocacy services where:
1. The BA is paid via some sort of agreed commission split with the chosen Selling Agent (80-20 or 70-30 splits are common)
2. The property is not going to auction in a defined 4-6 week period, and may take some time to sell.

I hold these concerns because:
1. What if the best selling agent for the job, will not agree to a shared commision with the BA? Does the BA compromise the vendor and select a second-rate agent that will share his/her commission?
2. What if the property takes a while to sell?
a. Is the BA feeling called upon to do too much work, over too long a period, for too little reward, and will therefore encourage vendors to sell at any price?
b. Or worse still, the selling agency agreement expires and another selling agent needs to be appointed?

These issues can be resolved, in my opinion, where the vendor, pays the BA on a "fee for service" basis.

Just my 2c worth.

The theory behind it is these people help you select an agent and ensure the agent doesnt rip you off by under / over pricing, having you pay needless marketing costs etc.

Their fee comes out of the agents comm.

In theory a good idea for people who aren't experienced in selling property.
Not a lot of science behind it though {no matter what they say}

T.G said:

The theory behind it is these people help you select an agent and ensure the agent doesnt rip you off by under / over pricing, having you pay needless marketing costs etc.

Their fee comes out of the agents comm.

In theory a good idea for people who aren't experienced in selling property.
Not a lot of science behind it though {no matter what they say}

Click to expand...

Agree 100% with Prop here- you need to be very aware of any possible conflict of interest if the referrer is receiving a fee from the selling agent to whom he/she is guiding you towards. The fairest way with VA is clearly a fee for service or hourly rate paid by the client/seller.

Thanks for all your input.

What would be the acceptable fee for their service? This will be the first time I am selling a
property.

Some do fixed fee, some do percentage of the agent comm.

Where abouts in Brisbane are you ?

Don't know how you went, I was a REA and they VA I feel do not do the best for the vendor.

Reason being, they take a % of the RA commission (Some up to 50%). All this does is make the REA less inclined to work on your property cause everyone is what is in it for me? Further to this the VA doesn?t do the open house, doesn?t organise the marketing/photos/copywriting/floorplan/open house/advertising but rather takes the notes from the REA and passes to the vendor, yet will claim up to 50% commission?

VA also have the usual agents they will call and have been told before ?look I need you to come out and give a price but I can?t give you this property as I need to spread it out but will have another house coming up shortly that I will get you on.?

So what do you do as a REA go to house one talk to the VA, they will tell you where to put the price in and then move on. Couple weeks later you get the call and you know you are going to be the one recommended.

Way I tell my friends is they do not add anything to the pie, they just divide the pie. So unless you make 2 pies (VA paid separate) they are not going to be worth it.

If you are really inexperienced ask a family member to meet with the agents and pick one you like. Don?t ask what price they will get (it means nothing, isn?t worth the paper it is written on) but rather how do they market to achieve the best possible price. How many agents will work on the property (if more than one, are other agents involved and remunerated?) Where I worked 20% would go to the listing agent (the agent you signed up with, 20% will go to the selling agent (who introduced the buyer to the property, could be the listing agent) and 60% goes to the office. With this agency we would continually achieve the best prices as every agent had the same reward for selling the property. Beware franchises do tell you the other offices will help sell, in fact they don?t or maybe 1 out of 100 (no joke), reason being if you hired 5 agents and the franchise in the neighboring suburb has a property to sell would you get your agents (who you are paying a salary to) to work on the property? I sure as hell wont.

has anyone experienced http://www.realestatemonitors.com.au/? They assist in selling process. The property is in Brisbane (lutwyche).

I have never heard of Real Estate Monitors. I clicked on the website, and see that it is run by Neil Jenman. Now he is the self proclaimed "guru". He is also one of the biggest bashers of the real estate industry. I know there are a few people on this site that would give him a run for his money ... .

I have always been a bit suspicious of people who position themselves above ... a bad person, rather than accepting that the other person may be a very genuine person and good at what they do, however I strive to be better.

I don't believe that you can throw mud, and not have some left in the shooting arm. I have seen a lot of people follow in earlier years, and revert after time.

Anyway, that my 2 cents, follow an established successful business in the area. They cannot remain successful, if their clients don't refer them on.

Peterw said:

I have never heard of Real Estate Monitors. I clicked on the website, and see that it is run by Neil Jenman. Now he is the self proclaimed "guru". He is also one of the biggest bashers of the real estate industry. I know there are a few people on this site that would give him a run for his money ... .

I have always been a bit suspicious of people who position themselves above ... a bad person, rather than accepting that the other person may be a very genuine person and good at what they do, however I strive to be better.

I don't believe that you can throw mud, and not have some left in the shooting arm. I have seen a lot of people follow in earlier years, and revert after time.

Anyway, that my 2 cents, follow an established successful business in the area. They cannot remain successful, if their clients don't refer them on.

Click to expand...

Very true, especially the non-franchise brands. My understanding is that they kind of do a reverse auction, where they will start the price higher than what you should get and after a couple of weeks slowly reduce until it sells. If your house is worth $500,000 they will first advertise it for $600,000 asking and then reduce until it sells which could take months.

I went to an auction on the weekend for this property http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-vic-heidelberg-117024871 Advertised price was $550,000-$600,000 and I truly thought it would get mid $600,000s and if there was a couple of people that really liked it, there is a chance of it getting high $600,000s. There were 6 bidders but 3 really wanted it, it actually sold for $721,500 and everyone in the crowd were beyond belief myself included. This is more than unrenovated properties that have sold on Quinn st (around the corner).

The RealEstateMontiors will only choose agents who are apart of Neil Jenman's program who may not be the best agent. Have a look at the sold section on realestate.com and pick 2 or 3 agents who have the most sold and give them a call. Then choose someone you believe can do the job and you trust. Do not take the highest appraisal value but look at how and why they market the property and how/why the believe they get the best price through their negation tactics, marketing, pricing.