Housing Agents
Personally, I feel house hunting and house selling should be an excited and happy event. But somehow or rather, housing agents are making me feel that moving house is a really bad idea.
They are absolutely a pain to the neck, irritating to the core and money-minded to the max.
Its not that I do not want to give them business. I bought my current unit eons ago through an agent too and had no problems because I wanted an agent to do my negotiation, paperwork, sourcing as I had little time and experience. So I don’t mind paying the 1% commission (which was $1,360 and to us, its freakingly a lot when we were surviving solely on dar’s income only).
BUT this time round, with some years of maturity, I feel I’m fit to handle a sale and purchase plus the high agent commission is really deterring – 2% to sell and 1% to buy. No way would I pay an exhorbitant amount of over $6,000! That can cover a third or so of my planned renovations for the new place lor.
I’v tried to made myself clear to the seller’s or buyer’s agents but they were always like ‘view now discuss later’. View already want to discuss terms and they start showing black face when I say you are not my agent so I’m not obligated to pay you.
The thing is I surf for the units available on my own, I call the seller (or rather the seller’s agent) to fix the appointment on my own, I travel to the unit on my own and I negotiate my own price, so where are your value-added services that makes me willing to part with my money?
There is no such thing as free money where you, just by being the seller or buyer’s agent, happen to meet a agentless (and please note, its not by luck I’m without an agent, its by choice) buyer or seller like me, then demand that we pay you the commission. If its that the case, to save the hassle, I rather find my own agent to do all the neccessary for me isn’t it, with all the service, transport, temporary secretary to arrange for the viewings etc.
Just because its a market practice doesn’t mean that it has to apply to everyone of us. That’s not the law what, right!
If you, the agent, filled up all the forms for me accurately, submitted the documents promptly and your attitude’s sincere and genuine, at your request, I wouldn’t mind giving a token of appreciation. But please, do not expect it!
Real Life Examples :
- One of the agent agreed on a fixed amount of commission to pay, however, after deciding on a unit, he wrote double the amount on the buyer’s commission form. UNETHICAL IDIOT!
- Whereas another agent, ‘let’s view first, discuss later’ and we somehow forgot to discuss. Later on, disagreements arises with ‘I thought you have agreed on the terms?’ (when more buyers wanted to view my unit and I did not want before we come to an mutual understanding) which was what I disagreed and wanted to discuss about but he perhaps conveniently forgot. SCHEMING IDIOT!
So anyways, they are really a bunch of pricks!
pegasus replied:
i put it like this… the property prices in singapore has almost increased by 50% over the past 12 months.
An agent helps you to sell one when the prices are at boom.
for the sellers… trust me it takes visit by 15 prospective buyers to make one sale… which individual has that kind of time? so better deal with a much pleasing agent to show u around the house
18 November 2006 at 7:41 pm. Permalink.
incywincy replied:
but if the agent is horrible? sigh. *pat pat* poor thing lah u. haha..
22 November 2006 at 2:53 am. Permalink.
pegasus replied:
then get a new one
22 November 2006 at 10:55 am. Permalink.
LinDa replied:
pegasus ~ dun noe lar. too tired with my work nowadays to bother abt those agents. i guess there are always some black sheeps around. maybe i keep meeting those. cant get back much cash anyways and i’ve got sufficient cpf for the new flat so not in a hurry to sell my current flat. can slowly wait for a good price lor.
dap ~ i still hate agents! so i hate yr boss. haha.. ok, tats totally unrelated.
22 November 2006 at 10:14 pm. Permalink.
Adam replied:
is it possible for u to rent out the old flat before it is sold?
i think the house rental market is always there.
23 November 2006 at 4:17 am. Permalink.
LinDa replied:
a-da-mu ~ cannot leh, there’s some pre-conditions before hdb can approve a hdb house for rental. and i dun tink it will be approve for my case lor. coz we cant hold 2 hdb units mar. they are super stringent one lor. y? u wanna rent?
24 November 2006 at 2:04 am. Permalink.
Adam replied:
heh no lah, since u mentioned you are not in a hurry to sell the old one, must well use it to invest instead of just leaving an empty room there mah.
some other people have been doing is they themselves stay in one of the rooms then rent out the others. or they just lock one of the rooms so when hdb come and check they can still claim they are staying there. but for ur case if cannot keep 2 hdb flats at the same time then forget it liao..
24 November 2006 at 11:46 am. Permalink.
Adam replied:
erm a-da-mu? is that some sort of translation? >.
24 November 2006 at 11:47 am. Permalink.
LinDa replied:
its chinese for adam! dangerous to rent out illegally. i had a friend whom did it and got found out. apparently, hdb followed her unit for a yr before calling her up to expose her. lots of photo evidence of how often she comes back etc. they hide near her unit to take pictures for 1 yr! tat’s where my tax money went to. :p
27 November 2006 at 12:29 am. Permalink.
pegasus replied:
1) who is HDB?
2) why is govt so concerned about what you do with your personal property. if you own the place and ur bedroom is nobody’s business.
27 November 2006 at 5:47 pm. Permalink.
LinDa replied:
1) housing development board
2) because its public housing, lots of rules and regulations to ‘protect’ the lower income. they do not want people to use public housing as a form of property speculation thats why.
27 November 2006 at 11:25 pm. Permalink.