What are some specific examples of how buyers agents can level the playing field against sellers and their agents?
At the most basic level of example, in the USA, the number of days that a property has been on the market is publicly available. As we know, the longer that a property has been on the market, the more desperate the sellers and their agents are likely to be. This translates to a stronger bargaining position from the buyers’ point of view. In Australia however, this information is not openly disclosed. When buyers’ inquire about this from the selling agents, they usually get the standard response of “recently” or “a couple of weeks”. Another example is when buyers attend Open for Inspections and the selling agents present “helpful” listings of recent comparable sales in the neighbourhood. What many buyers are not aware of however, is the common practice by selling agents to only list the sales records which are favourable to their sales pitch. Hence they will almost always exclude sales numbers which are not high enough in their opinion. However, we have access to the same databases and
