Buyer’s Agents – what do they actually do?  John Carew of Mayfield Property Buyers provides some insider insights.

In short, it’s about saving homebuyers and investors time and money.  Making buying a home easier by helping find the ideal property within a specified budget and location, in an ever-changing market.

How do they achieve that?  By doing all the leg-work on your behalf, reducing the stress and removing emotion from the process.

When selling property you’re likely to engage the services of an Estate Agent – a professional whose role is to get the highest possible price, in the quickest possible time, while you sit back and wait for offers coming in.

Buying is an altogether different process which can be both time-consuming and stressful.  Seriously, how much time do you want to spend poring over online ads or wandering round estate agents?  How many weekends of traipsing all around your chosen area attending open houses and auctions, before boredom, desperation or both, drive you to purchase a less than ideal property at a more than ideal price, just to get the process finished?

A Buyer’s Agent works with you to understand your budget, preferred locations and specific, detailed housing requirements.  They’ll advise on current housing trends, pointing out up and coming hotspots you may be unaware of.  Using their professional experience and industry contacts, they do all the running around sourcing suitable properties for your consideration – including houses not yet listed with any Estate Agent, giving you first bite of the cherry and potentially saving you tens of thousands of dollars. 

Buyer services, which can usually be provided independently or in any combination, include:

  • Search – saving you time and giving you back your weekends
  • Appraisal – professional, unbiased assessment of the true value of a desired property…ensuring you don’t overpay
  • Bidding – bringing objectivity to, and taking emotion from the highly stressful auction process
  • Negotiation & Offering – offering and subsequently negotiating favourable outcomes on your behalf

When considering using a Buyer’s Agent, find one with a completely transparent fee structure; if they’re unclear about how/when they get paid, they may not be working exclusively for you - walk away.  Good Buyer’s Agents partner with you through the whole purchasing journey: area selection, researching, appraising, shortlisting, bidding, negotiation and finally securing.

John Carew, September 2016