Buyers warned after agents fined for misleading price quotes.
BUYERS are being taken back to the "bad old days" of real estate traps through underquoting by real estate agents, according to the Real Estate Buyers' Agents Association of Australia (REEBA).
The warning comes after the State Government last week fined 13 Sydney real estate agents for quoting misleading low prices to prospective buyers. "Underquoting by selling agents has gone back to the days pre the 2003 reforms of the NSW Property Act which was partly designed to stamp out underquoting," said REBAA President Scott McGeever.
"Buyers should not accept the premise that only 13 agents have acted unethically and that quoting property prices is not 'an exact science'. While real estate prices are not 100% transparent, there are many tools available today including extensive online information to ensure a more accurate price is calculated and used as the quoted figure. We believe this is the tip of the iceberg and if an agent is not able to give a precise estimated selling price, then perhaps they should be leaving the real estate industry."
McGeever called for new reforms to stamp out the dishonest practice and to stop wasting buyers' time and money. "Buyers are spending a lot of money on due diligence (building and pest inspections, strata inspections, legals, deposit money preparation) when they never had a realistic chance of being able to secure the property at auction," he said.
"Selling agents should have to give a fixed amount as their estimated selling price on agency agreements with vendors and should be quoting within 5% of this figure to potential buyers for auction price guides."
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This article was written by Terry Ryder & is taken from the News page of the Hotspotting website
http://www.hotspotting.com.au. We highly recommend this website for people interested in real estate.
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INSTANT REACTIONTo put a property on the market takes effort. There is the effort in selecting the agent and marketing
strategy, the effort to prepare and present the property and then the effort to keep the presentation A1 throughout the campaign.
CONDITIONINGThe tricks used to drive your price down.
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