“I can’t stand Buyer’s Agents.” An eye-opening coffee shop conversation!

There’s only one thing I hate more than someone having a bad experience buying a property; when they’ve used a Buyer’s Agent and it still goes pear-shaped.

That was the experience of Ben, who I met in a coffee shop last week. When I told him I was a Buyer’s Agent, he went white as a sheet. I might as well have said I drowned puppies for a living!

He said he couldn’t stand Buyer’s Agents because he’d used one six years ago and had buyer’s remorse ever since. He felt “mugged off” by the whole process and couldn’t see what value we bring. 

Ben felt that he’d made a series of stupid mistakes when buying the property, which I thought was deeply unfair to him. The whole point of using a buyer's agent is that you acknowledge that you don't know everything, and the agent should be 100% transparent in filling in your knowledge gaps.

I was sorry that Ben had this experience, but I decided to dig deeper to find out what was done (or not done) to make his purchase such a nightmare. 

Disconnected couple

The first problem was that Ben and his partner weren’t aligned. She wanted to buy the property, and he didn’t. The agent let them argue it out, but you can't proceed when only one party is on board because this will cause issues. I'm no psychologist, nor a marriage counsellor but even Blind Freddy could foresee  that you need both people to be behind the transaction otherwise there will be issues down the road… and not just because of the money and stress involved.

Flight path pain

Ben’s property is on a flight path, which he had no idea about until the first plane roared over as they were unpacking. He had visited many times when no planes were overhead, so he had assumed they were not on a flight path. I don’t know why the agent didn’t give them a report because this is standard stuff. Many buyers don’t mind plane noise, but they should still have all the facts. In fact, this is one part of the due diligence that I don’t have strong opinions about, as noise is such a subjective thing - some people can live with it and others simply cannot. But, one simply cannot omit this crucial information prior to purchasing a property for a client.

DA searches were a dud

Another thing that was missed was the Development Application searches, which reveal potential works in the area that could impact the property. For example, there’s a small commercial premises on Ben’s street, and plans were in to demolish a house to make a new car park for the much larger commercial premises just around the corner.  Although this only had a small impact on his property, Ben should have known about it. 

The same goes for the zoning of the property and the immediate area around it. The buyer needs to understand that a neighbour with R3 or R4 zoning may be approached by a developer one day and that could mean that your once private backyard will be no longer private and overshadowed by lots of apartments. 

Biased building and pest inspection

Ben thought the building and pest inspection commissioned by the vendor was enough. It wasn’t, as several defects have since been flagged. In fairness, they were mentioned in the report but glossed over. Most reports commissioned by the vendor (upon recommendation by the selling agent) aren’t worth the paper they are written on. They tend to be way too vague with lots of bold red text of disclaimers.  Always get an independent report. Ben wasn’t told this, and the Buyer’s Agent didn’t even read the report. That to me is a major red flag!

Ben did say that the Buyer’s Agent bought the property before auction and he got it for a reasonable price. My response? Not good enough. If a Buyer’s Agent does nothing more than help you buy a property you like, they’re not doing their job!

The role of a Buyer’s Agent is to act as a guide throughout the whole process. To help you buy better, we need to make you understand everything about the property and present all the pros and cons. Only then can you make an informed decision. 

Ben said he wished he’d met me back then, which was nice to hear, but it does worry me that there are Buyer’s Agents like this out there. What we talked about is the bare minimum. There’s so much more to building trust with a client and going right through to purchase. If an agent can’t get close to this level of service, they are definitely more of a hindrance than a help.

If you’re looking for a Buyer’s Agent that will give you unbiased advice and work in your best interests, our team is on hand to help.