If you suspect the agent has UNDERQUOTED, say this... 🗞️ Real Estate Market Wrap

If you’re a buyer, I’m going to reveal 2 hidden strategies to find out if the agent has underquoted you!

• 03:25 – The “Double-Header” Conflict of Interest
• 07:11 – How does the Federal Election affect the real estate market?
• 10:03 – Massive stock will come onto the market before Easter
• 11:11 – The government is failing housing actuals vs targets

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Transcript

Tom Panos: 0:00

What is the best way to find out what a vendor that is auctioning their property really wants? Because we know that there is a subset of real estate agents that use a technique called underquoting. We're aware of that and in fact many, many agents do it at some sort of degree. Some worse than others do it at some sort of degree, some worse than others. But he said to me, if you were looking to buy and you really wanted to get an idea of what that owner really wanted because most of the times he goes when I was looking at real estate, I would end up having the agent give me a figure that would be 5% to 20% lower. Hey, ryan, good to see you. Anyway, let me tell you I'm going to give you three approaches for those of you that are in buying mode in auction areas where you've got to look at auctions or otherwise, you're not going to get a comprehensive list of properties to be looking at. Here are three approaches. Approach number one is you can send an email not verbal to the agent and say can I ask you what price on a contract will buy this property today? Straight out what price on a contract will buy this property today. That's one approach property today. That's one approach. The second approach is can I ask you, what price have you put on the agency agreement? Now, I know a lot of buyers wouldn't even understand the terms agency agreement and you know selling figure on the agency. But I'm letting you know that that is the case, that you can say what it is, because a real estate agent has to be quoting around the range of what they put on the agency agreement. Okay, so that would be another approach and actually I've got to tell you those two approaches. But the main thing is on email, when it's in writing. I've got to tell you, most real estate agents get very nervous about putting a number that is different to their agency agreement because they know it's in writing and it's black and white. So I would say that. But I mean simple, like just even an approach like this as a buyer saying to an agent hey, listen, I know that you're trying to encourage as many people as possible to look at this property. I'm a serious buyer and I know that, generally speaking, the properties go for higher than what agents are quoting. I'd like to ask you, because it impacts our whole life, what price do we have to pay today to secure this property? What price do we have to pay today to secure it?

Tom Panos: 3:26

Anyway, this morning in Byron Bay I ran into someone from Sydney who's in Byron Bay Holiday Inn and he said to me that he was over the moon because he'd found a house that he really wanted to buy and had his sights on this property for ages. And it came onto the market and he was able to buy it and he was prepared to pay an extra 50, 100 for it but didn't have to. Hey, remy, good to see you. Good to see you, remy. Thank you so much. She said you are such a show off. Wow, I haven't even started yet, remy, just stay patient, it's coming.

Tom Panos: 4:20

So what actually happened is he said to me 50 to 100 grand he would have paid more, right? 50 to 100 grand he would have paid more. Right 50 to 100 grand more he would have paid. And you know why he didn't have to? Because he actually told the real estate agent if you get it to me at this price, I'll give you my house. The agent said are you prepared to go more? And he said if I have to and I don't know why he said that, but he goes, but I prefer not. But if you get it to me at this price, I'll give you my home to sell.

Tom Panos: 5:08

And let me tell you that is one of the worst things I've heard of. That is a conflict of interest In real estate. We call it the double header. The double header and what it is? The double header is basically a real estate agent actually sells a property to a buyer and then represents hey, robert, good to see you as well, good to see you as well. So what happens is the real estate agent sells a buyer a property and then represents the buyer in selling their own property. So most of the times the doubleheaders go through and it's happy days for all. But occasionally, let me tell you, a real estate agent is will work very hard to make the buyer happy to get the listing. And I have to say to you, if I was a vendor and I had an agent that was trying to sell my home and then started pushing me to accept an offer an offer that I may not have been over the moon with, but one that I would like accept I would ask are you going to be representing the buyer in selling their property? That's right. So to the real estate agents that are on here. They know what I'm talking about. They know what I'm talking about and I've got to say that sometimes it's a lot better if a client actually uses two distinct agents in the buy-sell process. Let's leave it at that.

Tom Panos: 7:14

What does the federal election mean? What does a federal election mean for real estate? Well, going on past history and in the four decades I've been in real estate that there are both federal and state elections, you normally find that a lot of owners, for whatever reason, choose not to have a campaign around the election time, and that basically means that we're going to see those properties that may have taken place around the election. So we've got to have a guess on when the election is going to be right. So it's going to be either in May or April. What I'm saying is that you'll probably find there'll be properties that will be pushed faster onto the market so they don't hit election time, and then there's going to be properties that are going to go on after the election. That is the impact on election. As for election days, I mean I don't know why Agents always ask me are you auctioning on election day With a view that it's not a good day to auction on. I mean like, voting takes five, ten minutes. It's not like you've got to fly to put your vote in. You normally drive to your local public school or some scout hall. That's five minutes from your home and that takes 15 minutes. So I can't really see the significance of an election day impacting buyers. G'day Cameron, good to see you, and yes, we are going to make it a nice rant today, but let's get that election out of the way. That is the impact I think it will have.

Tom Panos: 8:57

Now other things that I want to touch on. This morning I'm working out of Byron Bay. I've been in Sydney all week. I went to Brisbane yesterday for a conference and, geez, that was a great conference I did for Torres Property. I really enjoyed seeing those people there, particularly Will Torres, the owner of that office, a refugee from El Salvador that now is writing around $4 million in fees, runs an incredible real estate company in Coorparoo in Brisbane, very proud A sign that it doesn't matter where you come from. It doesn't matter what school you enter. It doesn't matter what country you're born in. It doesn't matter whether you've got talent. It doesn't matter whether you've got an amazing family. The truth of the matter is if it's got to be. It's up to me, and Will Torres has shown that with one of the most challenging backgrounds when you look at the fortunate people that we are here in Australia. So team, massive stock to come on the market before Easter.

Tom Panos: 10:10

Today's auction clearance rates I didn't auction today and I'm going to let you know I wouldn't even pay any attention to auction clearance rates at the moment because volumes are so low. Most people are going to want to run a four-week advertising campaign before the auction. They can't have done that at this time of the year, so option volumes are quite low. You're not going to see a true reflection of the market in January and the reason why is there are less properties on the market and there are less options that are scheduled, so you've got buyers that are condensed into a smaller number of properties. So generally you'll get a better result as a seller assuming all things stay the same in January because of purely the demand and supply. So I wouldn't be paying any attention to any auction clearance rates at the moment. It means nothing. It means nothing.

Tom Panos: 11:10

The other thing I'm going to tell you is I've just read the latest article on the government's actuals versus targets in housing that they've got to meet. And I've got to tell you, I worked for Rupert Murdoch for 17, 18 years and if I was so behind on a target as what the government is, man, he would have just sacked me straight away. He would have sacked me. I mean, we're talking about the government is like achieving 20 to 30 percent of their targets. We have a recipe for disaster. There are more people coming into this country and there are less houses being built and no one is being kept accountable, because at the moment all we see is a progress report on how they're going. And I know what it's going to be like like four or five years later. Change of government, right? Oh yeah, you know, we've taken over their mess. So it's just going to be a groundhog day with a shortage of housing. I'm just reinforcing the problem. I'm not giving you any solutions.

Tom Panos: 12:12

Anyway, it would be remiss of me not to thank also my partners. A lot of people don't know that I work very closely with a number of companies in the real estate space in Australia newscorprealestatecom campaign agent ID for me, mess on agency wingman and agent box. I select who I work with. I have a lot more people that approach me, but I only pick one category or one company per category, and I pick the best. Yes, aaron Newey, my wife says government politicians should have KPIs. Yes, they should. They should have KPIs and not superannuation policies. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much. I'll see you next week.