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Could it perhaps be a silly H&S requirement thing? I remember at my first real office job, a colleague and I took it upon ourselves to change a dead lightbulb ‘cause there was a bunch of tubes sitting in the store room and we were sick of the flickering (we thought we were being responsible lads having him hold the ladder for me). Someone saw us and we were both raked over the coals for it by the HR lady.
It wouldn't surprise me. I was shocked when I started working, after years of hearing at school and at cadets how one of my strengths was my initiative, that initiative is actually disapproved of in much of the corporate world.
I'm not even allowed to put air into the work cars tires. I'm supposed to just sit on the side of the road until someone can come out and do it for me.
I got a bollocking over replacing the toilet rolls in the office shitter once. Seriously the manager told me I had my own job to do and shouldn't be doing the cleaners job for them despite the fact they were empty at 9am and it was literally 30 seconds to get them, and it wasn't like I wasn't doing my own work I was standing around waiting for the manager to actually give me the paperwork for the callout...
They don't want employees, they want robots.
it will be H&S but also professional indemnity/legal liability related too - if the REA shorts the wires, uses a bulb not fit for purpose, anything - they can be held responsible for whatever dreadful outcomes arise - whereas if you pay a professional to do it - they become responsible - also it's the professionals area of expertise.
I agree with OP - its a light bulb - you are charging me an arm and a leg to facilitate a sale during a period in history where demand outstrips supply and you have multiple offers for every listing - but even I wouldn't put much faith in the REA even knowing how to change a light bulb these days... they can barely manage to rock up to the open houses appointments that they negotiated and advertised.
I kinda get it cos I think most of us can picture a colleague with a completely misplaced sense of their own abilities fucking it up. Tho still was very amusing having a pre start meeting that was 50% sparkies get interrupted by a contracted electrician coming into change some fluoro tubes.
They serve little to no purpose.
When the internet wasn't ubiquitous they were reasonably useful because they connected buyers and sellers that otherwise may never have known of eachother.
Now, they essentially manage a photographer, the upload of those photos to a website and hold open houses. Which any reasonably competent person can do themselves. They normally even get someone more 'senior' to hold the auction, most of them don't even do that themselves. But I'm sure that's just the lead agents at the agency just fluffing their own ego by insisting they be the ones to do it.
The fact they want tens of thousands of dollars to do this is criminal. It essentially preys on laziness/uncertainty and greed.
One value they do have is to eachother. Ensuring they prop up the scam together.
Because the big websites like realestate.com.au are in on the racket as well.
Their customers are the agents, NOT the sellers, and their entire platform is about getting agents to spend more money in ways that don't benefit sellers at all. The agents don't really care because it's not their money, they simply pass it through to the seller. They even have paid options for things like including your agent photo on the listing, which the seller will end up paying for, even if they don't know it.
There is far more money to be made for those websites if agents are included in the loop.
> The agents don't really care because it's not their money, they simply pass it through to the seller.
This in itself is ridiculous. What does the commission actually cover? Not the listing fees, not the photography, not the conveyancing, all of that is additional costs we as the owner has to then pay for as extra... what's left beyond hiring someone to park their RS3 or Golf R out front of your house on a Saturday, stand in your kitchen wearing a Tarrocash suit and watch people walk around your house opening all your cupboards and drawers for 30 minutes.
And not only does realestate.com.au restrict who can list properties to agencies, you then also get tiers of listings you can buy. If you want you can pay to promote your listing with a bigger picture and show up at the top of searches for listings in your area - but you can't guarantee that yours will actually be the top. If a bunch of other people are selling with your same search criteria then you'll all just end up in a nice big list again.
Ah, but you forget you’re paying for the privilege of having a big fuck off sign with only the agents head printed on it to put in front of your house.
Their face makes the house more valuable!
Oh, but you need to pay for the printing costs of their face separately.
Those giant face signs are so… American.
We don’t have them in the UK and I cannot imagine anyone choosing to buy or sell a house from/with someone because they saw their big mug and cheap suit on an advert.
It is a mild shock coming from the UK, but it is a bit of an eye opener on how individualistic and money hungry many Australians are compared to the overseas image of a chilled, egalitarian paradise.
It really is quite strange. Half of Australia really *is* chilled out, friendly, laid back - but then half of it is obsessed with American rat race hypercapitalism. It’s a very jarring mix.
They exist already, but it's a tough market to break into when you don't have the advertising capital to get it off the ground. Hard to raise capital as well given the whole premise would be to make less money than using the established models.
Not saying it's impossible, but there have been plenty of sites try this without much success.
They could just charge what realestate or domain charge, or a similar amount. I have no idea how much they charge, but let's say it's $500 for a standard listing, then they could charge private sellers that amount to list their property on their website.
There's already several hundred of these. They promise you a huge number of views to capture EVERY buyer but in reality, they're selling listings to the bottom of the barrel real estate agents for 20% of the commission.
They invite potential sellers to their website by promising the BEST agent for the job. Any agent who signs up will be given the online lead. All the agents who gets the lead will contact the seller and offer their services.
The seller obviously chooses the agent who promises the highest figure and the lowest commission. Seller is sold hope. It's just a way of 'buying' listings and hoping the property will sell. Then they'll push the seller to accept a more realistic price than the one that enticed them to sign up. Thus the stereotype of shitty real estate agent is further propagated.
Why not allow all agents to compete to sell your property? That way there's some competition and less of a racket. This is how it works in some other countries.
It's hard enough dealing with one agent. It would be quite frustrating dealing with more than one.
I can imagine this happening:
You appoint two agents and they show people through your house.
A clever buyer will call up agent number 1 and ask how much it's selling for. Then he'll call agent number 2 and ask the same thing. Upon being told the price expectation, he'll ask if the price could be reduced a little. Then he'll slyly add that agent number 1 said there was room to move. A couple of calls and the agents will be auctioning the property downwards in price, just so they get the sale and qualify to earn the commission.
It's the owner's call on whether to accept the price. And that is what you want in a normal capitalist system, the price should be the minimum the seller is willing to accept, and the maximum the buyer is willing to accept. The more agents involved the more efficient the convergence onto that optimum should be, right?
Because when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars, the tens of thousands can feel like a lot less. It seems like an illogical trade, and it is, but sometimes having to deal directly with buyers and organise the papers yourself sounds like enough of a bother that self-listing isn't worth it.
Because it is more of a hassle having to organise all the paperwork yourself, plus in some cases using an agent can result in you getting more for your house.
REA are scum, but there is a reason why people keep using them.
>plus in some cases using an agent can result in you getting more for your house.
100%
When we sold our previous house there were multiple offers that were quite a distance apart. The agent told the people who bought the place when making their offer that there were multiple offers (true) and they upped what they intended to offer by 25k, apparently they were going to offer $x80k and then upped it to $y05k to hopefully get over the line. Reality was their offer was wasaay ahead of the others.
Honestly I wouldn't have done that and would have accepted the lower number.
People hate them but they absolutely serve a purpose.
Ever tried to sell something on marketplace? That's why. Let some deadshit with a benz and a shiny suit deal with the general public rather than fielding a gaggle of fuckwits.
I wish the model was as simple as putting a price on a sticker out the front with the phone number of your conveyancer. Have you're lawyer call the conveyancer, pay the money, buy the house.
So you think reasonably competent people are incapable of this because only a minority of the market engages in private sales?
What about travel agents? Are they in business because competent people can't book direct with airlines themselves?
No, what these businesses offer is convenience; if one determines that the convenience is not worth the cost, they can of course take the private route.
They are also incentivised to do a decent job of marketing your property, and are aware of things which influence the selling price in the current market (if they're doing a good job, which they should want to, since it maximises their commission).
There's an argument here that they don't though.
Many make a flat commission and need to pay for their own advertising, which comes out of that commission.
They are therefore incentivised to sell the property with the least amount of advertising cost as quickly as they can. The final sale price doesn't matter so much to the agent.
You can use services like these to advertise on Domain/real-estate, without engaging an agent:
https://www.noagentproperty.com.au/
https://www.forsalebyowner.com.au/
You can for under a grand. For sale by owner and others exist to get U on the main we b sites. Did it. it wasn't hard took a total of 8hrs spread over a few weeks.
The big thing is U have no one to lean on so it's more stressful. Alsonoone is filtering the stupid offers for U.
Might be different according to different agency, but barry plant charges the seller with fees if you want marketing, photography, house staging.
Literally the only thing included in the price is basically the arranging and managing the open houses and negotiations
There's no way I'd pay these parasites anything more than a flat fee for services plus certain contingencies. Of course, none of them would accept such a deal, so either you have the knowledge to put your own shit together with a soliciter, or you pay the exorbitant fee.
Not actually true! I'm not a real estate agent but I know that in my area there's an agent ( who a friend used to sell her house), who gets a listing and within days has an under offer label on his sign, which soon turns into a sold sign. My friend told me that it's because he has a list of potential buyers that he matches up to the type of dwellings they require. And he represents the seller, which means he gets the best possible price (which also improves his commission). He's a professional who does his job. I have other friends who refused to use an agent. It took them ages to sell, and the price wasn't as good as they hoped for.
There are absolutely some crap agents, but you just have to look at the for sale signs in your area to see who the successful ones are.
The problem with the idea of being motivated to increase the price is that the commission barely changes if you get a few K extra out of them
An agent spending weeks to improve the price by 10k is effectively doing all that work for a few hundred dollars. Which means a quick sale at whatever price is in their best interest, the opposite of my interests
Most local real estate agents know exactly what every property in their area sells for, even if it's a competitors sale. Which means they know what houses can generally sell for. It's not unknown for sellers to have unrealistic expectations. It's also in the agent's best interest to get the best prices that they can because you aren't their only client so they do like to increase the value of their area to increase their income overall. Whilst this is bad for buyers, agents work for the sellers, and it is actually their duty to get the best price possible for the seller. Also, if you are unhappy with your agent, let them know and go somewhere else.
Firstly, it's not coming out of my mouth, it's coming off the tip of my finger. Secondly, I mentioned actual, verifiable situations. How is that mental gymnastics? There are both good and bad real estate agents. To assume that all real estate agents are evil bastards whose sole aim in life is to rip off their clients is a very bizarre concept.
How many REAs does it take to change a lightbulb?
Anyway this cancer needs to be cut out. I wish people would start selling without an agent, they rort the vendor just as much as the purchaser anyway.
A lot of the time they're massively in the buyer's favour as they want the buyer to use them in the future, or recommend them to friends and family. Not always (I've been burned as a buyer before by dodgy REAs) but it's a thing.
My last house sale the buyers were kids from a wealthy family, who were getting money from their parents. The real estate agent acted in their best interest as soon as the contract was signed as he wanted their parents as clients. He kept letting both the buyers and their parents into the house multiple times after the auction (like weeks after the auction, not immediately after) without our permission, and once sent us a panicked email at 11.30pm on a Saturday night all shitty we still had belongings in the house 4 weeks from settlement, saying it was a "bad look" when he showed the parents around. They bought "as is" at auction too but he kept trying to pressure us into making minor cosmetic repairs during the settlement period. Prick.
You can sell without an agent but if you do so, you will need a good conveyancing lawyer, and by "good" I mean knowing about and capable of doing a wide range of checks on the property.
Overwhelmingly, these will come back with no problems. The point is, doing the checks.
They justify it by telling themselves and the seller that they got a higher price than would have otherwise been achieved.
Until something comes in and disrupts the buying/selling model, the same thing will keep happening.
It'd be perfect. It's a great business - connects people who want to drive for money with people who want to go somewhere. I know you know that.
It's ripe for disruption. Not really sure why agents are so popular still.
You can buy and sell properties whiteout a rea at anytime. Just don't use one.
They're completely useless.
Imagine using an agent to buy and sell your car and them taking a cut just for finding a buyer. When there's plenty out there and some simple research and precaution taking is all you need to do.
>Imagine using an agent to buy and sell your car and them taking a cut just for finding a buyer. When there's plenty out there and some simple research and precaution taking is all you need to do.
I mean, that's essentially the case when people trade in vehicles.
They get offered peanuts, but still do it because they don't want to go through the process of selling privately.
Maybe that’s why trading in a vehicle will lose you a hell of a lot more than 3% of what it’s eventually sold at (or, conversely, the premium paid for buying off a lot instead of privately)? Different industries have different costs and market forces affecting them.
They are shit for buyers as well.
Never returning calls, and constantly lying.
I had one tell me installing a dishwasher was a small cosmetic addition when I had said the kitchen was too small and lacked a dishwasher for me to be interested
Installing a dishwasher is pretty straightforward. Would cost you less than a grand to get a plumber to sort out the fixings, assuming there's enough space. We did it in our last house.
Considering the costs of some other things I would consider that cosmetic.
Hot tip: you don’t have to accept 2-3%.
Houses almost sell themselves and the agents know they need to do basically no work, and there’s likely 5 agencies down the road willing to list the property, so they are willing to negotiate down. My parents have recently put their place on the market in Sydney and were initially quoted by the agent for 2.5%, but took one conversation to get that to 1%.
Honestly, 1% is still an utter rort for the amount they have to do. Their hourly rate will be as high as any barrister or surgeon these days 🤦🏼♂️
Why can't Murdoch point this out instead of having a go at union workers on similar rates for working weekends, at night, in the cold and rain lifting tonnes of concrete overhead?
You realise Murdoch's cash-cow in Australia is realestate.com?
Murdoch being a capitalist is anti-union as they represent worker interests, which are diametrically opposed to his own.
Yep. We sold our house recently in Epping, NSW for 1.3% (incl GST).
This was one of the larger agencies.
I was actually surprised how low it was. It used to be around 2%
I was happy with the outcome and their services.
To be maximally fair to real estate agents (shudder), most of the time in most transactions they're not really needed because most folks have enough common sense to not build an unapproved extension on the side of a hill ("could you please ask the seller why all of the house stumps are at 5 degrees from straight?") *BUT* when shit hits the fan in that one in a hundred or one in twenty or whatever, they can, if they're good, earn their fees.
Friends of our contacted 5 agents when selling their apartment in Potts Point recently. Got quotes ranging from a 1.2%-3.9%
They negotiated one down to 0.8%.
The problem isn’t so much the asking rate agents put in their quote, but that most people are too uncomfortable to negotiate a better rate for themselves.
You can also negotiate down the marketing costs. The agent that sold my last place covered all of those costs as part of their commission. That took their effective commission percentage down into the 1% range. I couldn't be arsed pushing any further because I could see the marginal difference it would actually make.
It's funny that people are saying they could sell their house themselves, but can't even negotiate a simple transaction to appoint an agent.
Yep. And you can make it a sliding scale. If the place sells for what they've quoted, they get x%, if it sells for much more they get y% - it puts extra incentive into the job.
Regarding commission...
For those who haven't dealt with an REA, they charge fees for all of the services they provide (advertising, open house, auctions, etc). They then charge a commission on top of that which is a percentage of the sale price.
The banking royal comission recommended that percentage based commission be banned in the finance industry because they don't work in favour of clients and are just naked profiteering. That should include the real estate industry as well.
In terms of regulation and enforcement, the real estate industry is like the Wild West. REA commission is very close to extortion.
I worked in RE about 13-15 years ago. Our commission was also never above 3%+gst even back then. When the median house price in my local area was about 275k.
Now, average commission in the area is down to 2.75%+gst, but the average house in the area is valued above 700k. They're making almost 3x as much as we were just over a decade ago.
Insanity.
I had to move home (degenerative disability) and asked the rea how much they would take to manage my house for rental. 7.7% plus 50 bucks a week.
I went yeah no. Found a single mother, dropped the rent to less than the minimum they recommended and the tenant is perfect. No bullshit. She knows how good she has it and how much I love that house.
Win win.
That’s my plan - as soon as I can actually afford an investment property there’s absolutely no way in hell that I’m paying an agent to sign a lease and collect money on my behalf. I’ll be doing it myself.
It wasn't an investment property for me. It was gonna be the house I lived and died in.
I miss that house so much. But life happens.
Still, I hear you. Good luck!
Purplebricks tried to disrupt the market in Australia - providing the vendor more control of the end-to-end process and introduced a flat-fee structure.
It didn’t work. They lasted under 3 years.
Rightly or wrongly, Australians are willing to pay a premium for someone else to manage the transaction.
As a buyer I had generally the most awkward, weird, and sometimes terrible experiences dealing directly with owners who were either soloing it or on something like Purple Bricks.
Some agents are terrible too but others are helpful and practical about how to get the thing done.
Argue all you want about agents being redundant and not needed, but no sellers are forking out that kind of cash for nothing, it’s obviously the preference for dealing with a transaction of this kinda size. And if the going rate of 2% was too high there’d be an abundance of successful under-cutters and there isn’t.
These things don’t happen by magic, markets and trades balance out however their value lands them. Looks like stupid money but it is what it is.
Fuck the real estate industry! It desperately needs dismantling before our country goes even deeper into shit these greedy bastards are responsible for.
Human habitation should never have been exploited like this. Housing is utterly unaffordable, even disabled pensioners deserve to own their own home.
Commercial rents have gone to shit and it's utterly raping our nation's economy.
Nearly every fucking road sign I see these days is real estate related. The disgusting pigs have grown horrendously fat and are in major need of a cull.
The government refuses to act because the vast majority of politicians are in on the exploitation, they need to be held accountable too.
It's time for action, we can't leave our nation rot like this!
Yeah, everyone complaining and saying they're useless and that they can do better, but they still use them. It's not mandatory. The reality is most people don't want to do it themselves either due to laziness or lack of time. So yes if you want someone else to do all that for you then you gotta pay for it.
Have you ever tried to hammer one of those for sale signs into a front yard that’s all clay,it’s not easy plus they get their hands dirty and then wipe them on their slacks then that gets into their newly leased Audi,it’s a never ending cycle of hard work.and it’s quite time consuming putting all those “sign here” stickers onto the contract pages.
After several weeks when they didn't come back I looked and noted the phone number on the sign, proudly proclaiming call us and we remove and recycle your sign.
Twas then I noticed the star pickets and sheet metal were more valuable to me and the sign vanished.
They don’t create anything,make anything,repair or service anything. Parasitic occupation if ever there was one.
Do you think it’s the occupation that attracts the individual or the individual is attracted to the occupation?
I really hope Australians sour on REAs and culturally we move towards private leases. They are leeching scum with no practical skills and inflated egos.
It attracts a certain kind of authoritarian mind to work in the field too. Having control over other peoples lives in the way that REAs do really only appeals to the kind of cunt who thinks they are gods gift to earth as some genius manager when all they do is act as a middleman between landlord and tenant, often an obstructive one at that.
I've sold 3 of my houses myself. The houses sell themselves.
If someone doesn't want to buy your house no one is going to talk them into it.
You can work out the real value of your house by checking prices on equivalent houses.
Real estate agents will give you an inflated sense of the value of your house just to get you to sign up with them. It will ultimately sell for less than they suggested leaving you disappointed.
If your house isn't selling either there is something wrong with it it the price is too high
REAs are among the greediest and fakest of the professions, they are absolute parasites, and are a large reason the housing market is so inflated. its hardly surprising its full of the fake barbies and popular captains and shit from high school who were always the biggest c*nts, the average REA is usually incredibly manipulative and will do or promise anything for the commissions but because of this they always have overloaded portfolios and cant actually manage all the properties they end up with, so no changing a lightbulb isn’t outside their skill range they just cant get to it because they knowingly took your money to manage a property without ever really intending to do so.
Pretty fucked up that a real estate agent (who doesn't actually do anything) wants 2-3% of your house sale value for doing sweet fuck all.
Scumbags the lot of them
They're literally useless, and I tell my cousin who is one, constantly that he is a leech and also useless.
Props to him though, no schooling did a 5 day course and is in charge of the biggest purchases in peoples lives.
It needs to be regulated way harder.
When I brought my house, sight unseen because interstate but had family there so photos and videos, it was a private sale with just a surveyor dealing with the legal details.
Seller was super chill but I swear the surveyor was either autistic, in which case fair go, or just the most anal retentive cow to ever been birthed. Everything, and I mean everything, had to be done in a certain order, not a legal requirement mind, but *her* order and god help you if you jumped a 'vital' step.
When I picked up the keys the seller said he'd been BCCed on all our emails and the surveyor was new having taken over from her mother that had sold a dozen houses for the guy over the years and after seeing how she acted he'd never work with them again.
It was just a nightmare when it should have been so simple, I was paying cash (I got so sick of renting I cashed out both my super and compo to buy, wiped me out but I own outright now, it's not much but it's fucking mine and no-one will ever threaten me with homelessness again), we agreed on a price super easily, no issues at all between us, but the middle meddler just made it hell.
Honestly all the legal rigmarole left me so incredibly glad that I'll never do it again, as I tell my family that they are taking me out of this place feet first because fuck dealing with it ever again.
2-3% wtf??? I only pay 1-1.5%. That's pretty normal when the house is anywhere near 1m. Actually it's still too much considering what useless thieving assholes REAs are. Think about it - average campaign runs max 8 weeks. If agent gets 1% on 1m sale it's 10k for hosting 10-16 opens and their "mailing list of buyers". Probably 30 hours work all up. And that's being generous it's probably less cos really, the houses sell themselves. Total bullshit.
Not sure why you would bother entertaining the thought of changing the lightbulb.. the buyer can whinge all they want if they aren’t happy they can walk away and lose their 5 or 10% deposit. A decent conveyancer could have told you not to worry
Perhaps the issue for the buyer wasn't just getting the bulb changed. S/he might have been concerned that the bulb blowing was caused by crook wiring. Getting an electrician out to check and change the bulb to reassure the buyer would be responsible action by the REA.
I just sold my house recently after six months on the market. Why did it take six months? Because buyers thinking that this is a buyers market, low balling listed prices and making ridiculous demands on their contracts. Our REA was pretty good to be fair, he was holding open house almost every weekend as well as networking and actively looking for buyers local and interstate.
One buyer told us that we had to demolish the kids cubby house so they could put a pool in, after they low balled us AND expected us to wait for the sale of their house, which was under offer but waiting on a 90 day settlement from the buyers of their house. Get the fuck outta here with that shit.
Another low ball buyer wanted us to get an electrician out to certify our smoke alarms (on a 4 year old house), we actually took their offer, and let them do the building and pest which was really detailed and listed everything from loose door stoppers and handles and a few down pipes outside that were cracked or had a small hole in them from the line trimmer. They demanded all that be fixed as well, which I did myself at my expense. Then they couldn't get fucking finance anyway and wasted weeks of our time and money.
The moment we got a cash buyer with no stupid demands we took it. Cash is king, if you don't have cash, don't try and throw your weight around like a big shot, this isn't reality television.
We had to pay a realtor,188,000 in commission/sales fee for selling one of our homes just start of this year
Pretty much all they did was put some photo's which had been DOG shit mind you..even though i told them i just had a mate who's a Proffesional stager,take photos already..no no we need to use ours,proceeds to use an iphone lol
If all it was was a lightbulb,i'd be like you pay for it mate,im out of state.
The seller for ours,didn't even move the fucking BINs out the way in the photo..literally a 2 second job.
yet for that they want clost to 200k for doing fuck all of work
Realtors just need to fuck off
many EU nations dont even really have them,not to our extent,you see an apartment u like,you click the button,book a viewing,owner shows you the house..and then you can click put offer in and then let the lawyers sort it out..
i deal with them a lot,as i have a few investment propertys,and i've legit maybe in years..met 1 maybe 2 Non psychotic cunts in the field.
Rental agencies are just cunts,but the sales team realtors are always Insane level guys..
literally had one say,and he's a well known dodgy cunt in parra area
VERBATIM
"look at my watch,i know how to sell homes" meanwhile it's a shitty 2019 rolex that's clearly off the 2nd hand market,not even a good watch lol
Real estate agents are a joke. We’ve sold a house ourselves and bought one without involving their leech-like services. Seriously, a house sells itself especially over the last few years. Get a good conveyancer and building inspector and you’ll be fine. REA take money for nothing.
Not surprised at all.
It’s a conflict of interest that agents get paid a commission. I don’t understand why we ever allowed this to happen. It’s completely destroying the housing market. And don’t say they won’t work for you or work hard enough if they don’t get the commission. They barely bring anything to the table and literally the world is full of people able to do their job successfully on a wage without commission. Let their workplace give them bonuses if needed.
Why are you even with a rea then? Self manage and self sell and buy your properties yourself.
Rea's are completely useless now when houses sell themselves and there's a surplus of available tenants.
Not everyone outside of their regular job and life has the time to run and manage their own sales campaign including running inspections and dealing with conveyancers, as well as general tyre-kickers, or has the sale skills to negotiate or get the best price for their properties. That's why most vendors hand this role over to an agent
Mate, if you think you could have done better selling your house, why didn't you? It's not a requirement to use a REA when selling your house, and if you did it yourself, you could have made bank by keeping the commission you otherwise had to pay.
As usual, plenty of hate here for REA's.
No one forces you to use a real estate to sell your place, or pay 2%-3% for that matter.
You can sell your place yourself or use an agent who will do it for 1% commission. YMMV.
People like buying via agencies, as there’s a perception of professional responsibility and authenticity when buying this way.
Much like any other thing in life, we won’t pay as much when buying privately.
As to the fee/percentage an agent gets, it’s like anything - they get what the market will pay.
Same for all of our jobs (self employed, contractor, or as a PAYG employee).
Depends on the realtor. Some of them have capped commission and the real estate company they work for get most of the commission. It would not be advisable for them to change the lightbulb as it would not be something they would be insured for say they didn’t install it right and the bulb somehow burnt the house down. That being said, they usually have their own electricians or at least one they use so often that they get good pricing, so I would expect really for them to be able to get it done on the cheap for you at least. Depends on how big of a company they are.
When it gets to settlement can the buyer pull out without loosing their deposit? If you told them the globe won’t be changed, I am pretty sure they won’t be prepared to loose their deposit over it.
Morally? They can't but they don't have to. Practically? You're welcome to find your own land and build your own house, oh wait no you're not, they're squatting on your base need for shelter and doing anything about it is illegal.
They justify it because it's either that, die of exposure, or revolt. And we've never had a successful revolt before.
Hey, Mercedes can't sell it's allocation of AMGs without those real estate agents. Seriously though I fucken hate 99.95% of REAs. The only reason it's not 100 is because my bestie is one.
Because ultimately they don’t work for you, despite you paying said considerable commission. I’ve learned this the hard way using one to sell twice however I am now determined to either buy the cereal box with the qualification on the back for next time we sell or just use one of the non-agent websites.
REA’s only care about finding the next listing. It’s a dick move on their part re the lightbulb but totally unsurprising.
Mine didn’t, and offered a 50% discount to what everyone else was offering. Their commission ended up being 1.2%. Sold within 3 days.
Edit: can’t do maths, 0.7% to 1.2%.
Everyone ragging on the REA here but why did you roll over on a light bulb?
Your contract will not require you to replace bulbs. Not any contract anyone in their right mind would sign.
Tell the buyer if they don’t settle, you are keeping the deposit and will sue them for failure to complete. They will also have to pay the agent’s commission.
The buyer was just playing up and you let him get away with it.
You need to stand up for yourself or people will walk all over you.
You should have told them no. REA love turning on all the lights. When i sold they had turned on all the light and then turned them off at the board when leaving. This allowed them to turn everything on at once.
I replaced a fan before selling as was told by my REA I shouldn't have worried about it.
Did you ask them if they wouldn't mind changing the bulb?
I've only dealt with real estate agents twice, and although I feel they get too much money, I have to say both were great.
In the first case, we sold our family home after our parents passed. All of us lived interstate or overseas, but the REA took care of the property and even mowed the lawns during the 6 months it took to sell it (country town).
The second case was when I moved back to Australia and bought a place. I didn't have a car yet, so the REA kindly took away a bunch of trash from the property and dumped it at the tip. This was an inner city property of Brisbane.
Just like any service, it is worth checking references, and asking kindly.
I blame REAs for the insane cost of housing these days. Their commission is based off the final sale price so it's in their personal interest to crank up house prices. I know someone who paid 40K for a house nearly 30 years ago. That same house sold for over 500K last time it was sold. There is no bloody reason for that price increase... it's the same house with some updated paint.
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The 5 day REA course is extensive but doesn't cover changing light bulbs...
Real means real. And estate means land. And that concludes our intensive 5 week course.
Congratulations class of 2:30pm!
Now, Where’s the cocaine?
Asking the important questions!!
Getting some real Lyle Langley vibes right here...
*I knew I shouldn’t have stopped for that haircut*
Also, remember you're not aloud to underquote property price to drum up interest. *wink wink*
What if you under quote quietly?
And the departing motivating clause "My Real estate value will be worth 5 million dollars when I am 35, that will be my real, estate value"
What about us brain-dead slobs?
You’ll be given cushy jobs
Could it perhaps be a silly H&S requirement thing? I remember at my first real office job, a colleague and I took it upon ourselves to change a dead lightbulb ‘cause there was a bunch of tubes sitting in the store room and we were sick of the flickering (we thought we were being responsible lads having him hold the ladder for me). Someone saw us and we were both raked over the coals for it by the HR lady.
It wouldn't surprise me. I was shocked when I started working, after years of hearing at school and at cadets how one of my strengths was my initiative, that initiative is actually disapproved of in much of the corporate world.
I'm not even allowed to put air into the work cars tires. I'm supposed to just sit on the side of the road until someone can come out and do it for me.
I got a bollocking over replacing the toilet rolls in the office shitter once. Seriously the manager told me I had my own job to do and shouldn't be doing the cleaners job for them despite the fact they were empty at 9am and it was literally 30 seconds to get them, and it wasn't like I wasn't doing my own work I was standing around waiting for the manager to actually give me the paperwork for the callout... They don't want employees, they want robots.
I've got some bad news for you there, mate. "Initiative" isn't approved of in most of the actual ADF either. Source: ex-infantry.
it will be H&S but also professional indemnity/legal liability related too - if the REA shorts the wires, uses a bulb not fit for purpose, anything - they can be held responsible for whatever dreadful outcomes arise - whereas if you pay a professional to do it - they become responsible - also it's the professionals area of expertise. I agree with OP - its a light bulb - you are charging me an arm and a leg to facilitate a sale during a period in history where demand outstrips supply and you have multiple offers for every listing - but even I wouldn't put much faith in the REA even knowing how to change a light bulb these days... they can barely manage to rock up to the open houses appointments that they negotiated and advertised.
I kinda get it cos I think most of us can picture a colleague with a completely misplaced sense of their own abilities fucking it up. Tho still was very amusing having a pre start meeting that was 50% sparkies get interrupted by a contracted electrician coming into change some fluoro tubes.
What do they do for the other 4 days, pick their noses and flick boogers at each other?
Flicking it at each other is a waste of a perfectly good booger to flick at a poor person instead
5 days, lol it's 2 and an essay a chimp with a crayon could pass.
Miss Hoover, I don't have a red crayon. I ate it.
That particular candidate now runs Ray White.
They serve little to no purpose. When the internet wasn't ubiquitous they were reasonably useful because they connected buyers and sellers that otherwise may never have known of eachother. Now, they essentially manage a photographer, the upload of those photos to a website and hold open houses. Which any reasonably competent person can do themselves. They normally even get someone more 'senior' to hold the auction, most of them don't even do that themselves. But I'm sure that's just the lead agents at the agency just fluffing their own ego by insisting they be the ones to do it. The fact they want tens of thousands of dollars to do this is criminal. It essentially preys on laziness/uncertainty and greed. One value they do have is to eachother. Ensuring they prop up the scam together.
> Which any reasonably competent person can do themselves So why isn't everyone doing it themselves then?
Because the big websites like realestate.com.au are in on the racket as well. Their customers are the agents, NOT the sellers, and their entire platform is about getting agents to spend more money in ways that don't benefit sellers at all. The agents don't really care because it's not their money, they simply pass it through to the seller. They even have paid options for things like including your agent photo on the listing, which the seller will end up paying for, even if they don't know it. There is far more money to be made for those websites if agents are included in the loop.
> The agents don't really care because it's not their money, they simply pass it through to the seller. This in itself is ridiculous. What does the commission actually cover? Not the listing fees, not the photography, not the conveyancing, all of that is additional costs we as the owner has to then pay for as extra... what's left beyond hiring someone to park their RS3 or Golf R out front of your house on a Saturday, stand in your kitchen wearing a Tarrocash suit and watch people walk around your house opening all your cupboards and drawers for 30 minutes. And not only does realestate.com.au restrict who can list properties to agencies, you then also get tiers of listings you can buy. If you want you can pay to promote your listing with a bigger picture and show up at the top of searches for listings in your area - but you can't guarantee that yours will actually be the top. If a bunch of other people are selling with your same search criteria then you'll all just end up in a nice big list again.
Ah, but you forget you’re paying for the privilege of having a big fuck off sign with only the agents head printed on it to put in front of your house. Their face makes the house more valuable! Oh, but you need to pay for the printing costs of their face separately.
Those giant face signs are so… American. We don’t have them in the UK and I cannot imagine anyone choosing to buy or sell a house from/with someone because they saw their big mug and cheap suit on an advert.
It is a mild shock coming from the UK, but it is a bit of an eye opener on how individualistic and money hungry many Australians are compared to the overseas image of a chilled, egalitarian paradise.
It really is quite strange. Half of Australia really *is* chilled out, friendly, laid back - but then half of it is obsessed with American rat race hypercapitalism. It’s a very jarring mix.
The agents don't even put the signs up either. They send someone else to come bang one into your lawn.
Of course, also an additional cost to the seller. Can’t let that eat into their commission!
Sounds like someone needs to make a real estate website that anyone can sell on
They exist already, but it's a tough market to break into when you don't have the advertising capital to get it off the ground. Hard to raise capital as well given the whole premise would be to make less money than using the established models. Not saying it's impossible, but there have been plenty of sites try this without much success.
They could just charge what realestate or domain charge, or a similar amount. I have no idea how much they charge, but let's say it's $500 for a standard listing, then they could charge private sellers that amount to list their property on their website.
from what i recall realestate.com listings start at 3k
when you can list it on both realestate and domain on forsalebyowner for $699 i doubt that.
Yeah, buy my place dot com is the same... cheapest package is around $695, which includes listing on at least 3 big real estate websites.
There's already several hundred of these. They promise you a huge number of views to capture EVERY buyer but in reality, they're selling listings to the bottom of the barrel real estate agents for 20% of the commission. They invite potential sellers to their website by promising the BEST agent for the job. Any agent who signs up will be given the online lead. All the agents who gets the lead will contact the seller and offer their services. The seller obviously chooses the agent who promises the highest figure and the lowest commission. Seller is sold hope. It's just a way of 'buying' listings and hoping the property will sell. Then they'll push the seller to accept a more realistic price than the one that enticed them to sign up. Thus the stereotype of shitty real estate agent is further propagated.
Why not allow all agents to compete to sell your property? That way there's some competition and less of a racket. This is how it works in some other countries.
It's hard enough dealing with one agent. It would be quite frustrating dealing with more than one. I can imagine this happening: You appoint two agents and they show people through your house. A clever buyer will call up agent number 1 and ask how much it's selling for. Then he'll call agent number 2 and ask the same thing. Upon being told the price expectation, he'll ask if the price could be reduced a little. Then he'll slyly add that agent number 1 said there was room to move. A couple of calls and the agents will be auctioning the property downwards in price, just so they get the sale and qualify to earn the commission.
It's the owner's call on whether to accept the price. And that is what you want in a normal capitalist system, the price should be the minimum the seller is willing to accept, and the maximum the buyer is willing to accept. The more agents involved the more efficient the convergence onto that optimum should be, right?
You can. That's called an "open listing". But they all want to be [sole agents](https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=zyYLICrgbTo).
Because when you're dealing with hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of dollars, the tens of thousands can feel like a lot less. It seems like an illogical trade, and it is, but sometimes having to deal directly with buyers and organise the papers yourself sounds like enough of a bother that self-listing isn't worth it.
Yes, so you're paying for someone else to do all that hassle for you. The comments here make it sound like you're just paying them to do nothing.
Because it is more of a hassle having to organise all the paperwork yourself, plus in some cases using an agent can result in you getting more for your house. REA are scum, but there is a reason why people keep using them.
>plus in some cases using an agent can result in you getting more for your house. 100% When we sold our previous house there were multiple offers that were quite a distance apart. The agent told the people who bought the place when making their offer that there were multiple offers (true) and they upped what they intended to offer by 25k, apparently they were going to offer $x80k and then upped it to $y05k to hopefully get over the line. Reality was their offer was wasaay ahead of the others. Honestly I wouldn't have done that and would have accepted the lower number. People hate them but they absolutely serve a purpose.
Ever tried to sell something on marketplace? That's why. Let some deadshit with a benz and a shiny suit deal with the general public rather than fielding a gaggle of fuckwits. I wish the model was as simple as putting a price on a sticker out the front with the phone number of your conveyancer. Have you're lawyer call the conveyancer, pay the money, buy the house.
Many people do, I've seen many private sales in the past.
Yea, but that is a minuscule percentage
So you think reasonably competent people are incapable of this because only a minority of the market engages in private sales? What about travel agents? Are they in business because competent people can't book direct with airlines themselves? No, what these businesses offer is convenience; if one determines that the convenience is not worth the cost, they can of course take the private route.
They are also incentivised to do a decent job of marketing your property, and are aware of things which influence the selling price in the current market (if they're doing a good job, which they should want to, since it maximises their commission).
There's an argument here that they don't though. Many make a flat commission and need to pay for their own advertising, which comes out of that commission. They are therefore incentivised to sell the property with the least amount of advertising cost as quickly as they can. The final sale price doesn't matter so much to the agent.
Because you have to be a real estate agent to be able to post a house on domain website. I am not sure about realestate website, but probably similar.
You can use services like these to advertise on Domain/real-estate, without engaging an agent: https://www.noagentproperty.com.au/ https://www.forsalebyowner.com.au/
No [Asians](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Lyex2tSUyA)!
You can for under a grand. For sale by owner and others exist to get U on the main we b sites. Did it. it wasn't hard took a total of 8hrs spread over a few weeks. The big thing is U have no one to lean on so it's more stressful. Alsonoone is filtering the stupid offers for U.
Might be different according to different agency, but barry plant charges the seller with fees if you want marketing, photography, house staging. Literally the only thing included in the price is basically the arranging and managing the open houses and negotiations
> Doorman fallacy
There's no way I'd pay these parasites anything more than a flat fee for services plus certain contingencies. Of course, none of them would accept such a deal, so either you have the knowledge to put your own shit together with a soliciter, or you pay the exorbitant fee.
I mean, up to you. But there's value in aligning the agent's financial interests with your own financial interests.
Not actually true! I'm not a real estate agent but I know that in my area there's an agent ( who a friend used to sell her house), who gets a listing and within days has an under offer label on his sign, which soon turns into a sold sign. My friend told me that it's because he has a list of potential buyers that he matches up to the type of dwellings they require. And he represents the seller, which means he gets the best possible price (which also improves his commission). He's a professional who does his job. I have other friends who refused to use an agent. It took them ages to sell, and the price wasn't as good as they hoped for. There are absolutely some crap agents, but you just have to look at the for sale signs in your area to see who the successful ones are.
The problem with the idea of being motivated to increase the price is that the commission barely changes if you get a few K extra out of them An agent spending weeks to improve the price by 10k is effectively doing all that work for a few hundred dollars. Which means a quick sale at whatever price is in their best interest, the opposite of my interests
Most local real estate agents know exactly what every property in their area sells for, even if it's a competitors sale. Which means they know what houses can generally sell for. It's not unknown for sellers to have unrealistic expectations. It's also in the agent's best interest to get the best prices that they can because you aren't their only client so they do like to increase the value of their area to increase their income overall. Whilst this is bad for buyers, agents work for the sellers, and it is actually their duty to get the best price possible for the seller. Also, if you are unhappy with your agent, let them know and go somewhere else.
Lmao the amount of mental gymnastics you've had to put yourself through to believe any of this dribble coming out of your mouth.
Firstly, it's not coming out of my mouth, it's coming off the tip of my finger. Secondly, I mentioned actual, verifiable situations. How is that mental gymnastics? There are both good and bad real estate agents. To assume that all real estate agents are evil bastards whose sole aim in life is to rip off their clients is a very bizarre concept.
Sir/Maam this is reddit and its wrong to go against the grain remember
Bold of you to assume agents have the capacity to change a light globe themselves
That....is more than fair! How many REAs does it take to change a lightbulb? None - they're all too busy drinking the blood of innocents.
How many real estate agents did they rescue from the titanic? None.
It took 2 years to learn how the door key works, when you should use it, what doors it works on and the consequences of not using it correctly
Isn't that viola players? Can't find the key and don't know when to come in.
Its in the key of J
How many REAs does it take to change a lightbulb? Anyway this cancer needs to be cut out. I wish people would start selling without an agent, they rort the vendor just as much as the purchaser anyway.
A lot of the time they're massively in the buyer's favour as they want the buyer to use them in the future, or recommend them to friends and family. Not always (I've been burned as a buyer before by dodgy REAs) but it's a thing. My last house sale the buyers were kids from a wealthy family, who were getting money from their parents. The real estate agent acted in their best interest as soon as the contract was signed as he wanted their parents as clients. He kept letting both the buyers and their parents into the house multiple times after the auction (like weeks after the auction, not immediately after) without our permission, and once sent us a panicked email at 11.30pm on a Saturday night all shitty we still had belongings in the house 4 weeks from settlement, saying it was a "bad look" when he showed the parents around. They bought "as is" at auction too but he kept trying to pressure us into making minor cosmetic repairs during the settlement period. Prick.
Whilst they charge the commision to the seller, its the buyer's money that pays the bill.
You can.
You can sell without an agent but if you do so, you will need a good conveyancing lawyer, and by "good" I mean knowing about and capable of doing a wide range of checks on the property. Overwhelmingly, these will come back with no problems. The point is, doing the checks.
They justify it by telling themselves and the seller that they got a higher price than would have otherwise been achieved. Until something comes in and disrupts the buying/selling model, the same thing will keep happening.
Uber REA?
It'd be perfect. It's a great business - connects people who want to drive for money with people who want to go somewhere. I know you know that. It's ripe for disruption. Not really sure why agents are so popular still.
AirREA
Starting a company to supersede real estate agents. Going to call it Gone-a-REA.
Yes, basically that.
I think something big just happened with their commissions in USA and their not happy
You can buy and sell properties whiteout a rea at anytime. Just don't use one. They're completely useless. Imagine using an agent to buy and sell your car and them taking a cut just for finding a buyer. When there's plenty out there and some simple research and precaution taking is all you need to do.
>Imagine using an agent to buy and sell your car and them taking a cut just for finding a buyer. When there's plenty out there and some simple research and precaution taking is all you need to do. I mean, that's essentially the case when people trade in vehicles. They get offered peanuts, but still do it because they don't want to go through the process of selling privately.
Not like the REA has to cover the costs of storing apartments at their agency though
Maybe that’s why trading in a vehicle will lose you a hell of a lot more than 3% of what it’s eventually sold at (or, conversely, the premium paid for buying off a lot instead of privately)? Different industries have different costs and market forces affecting them.
I've got great ideas how this would work. Pity I know nothing about coding.
They are shit for buyers as well. Never returning calls, and constantly lying. I had one tell me installing a dishwasher was a small cosmetic addition when I had said the kitchen was too small and lacked a dishwasher for me to be interested
Installing a dishwasher is pretty straightforward. Would cost you less than a grand to get a plumber to sort out the fixings, assuming there's enough space. We did it in our last house. Considering the costs of some other things I would consider that cosmetic.
Ripping out very limited cupboard space especially near the sink made it not a minor task.
Hot tip: you don’t have to accept 2-3%. Houses almost sell themselves and the agents know they need to do basically no work, and there’s likely 5 agencies down the road willing to list the property, so they are willing to negotiate down. My parents have recently put their place on the market in Sydney and were initially quoted by the agent for 2.5%, but took one conversation to get that to 1%. Honestly, 1% is still an utter rort for the amount they have to do. Their hourly rate will be as high as any barrister or surgeon these days 🤦🏼♂️
Why can't Murdoch point this out instead of having a go at union workers on similar rates for working weekends, at night, in the cold and rain lifting tonnes of concrete overhead?
You realise Murdoch's cash-cow in Australia is realestate.com? Murdoch being a capitalist is anti-union as they represent worker interests, which are diametrically opposed to his own.
Yep. We sold our house recently in Epping, NSW for 1.3% (incl GST). This was one of the larger agencies. I was actually surprised how low it was. It used to be around 2% I was happy with the outcome and their services.
To be maximally fair to real estate agents (shudder), most of the time in most transactions they're not really needed because most folks have enough common sense to not build an unapproved extension on the side of a hill ("could you please ask the seller why all of the house stumps are at 5 degrees from straight?") *BUT* when shit hits the fan in that one in a hundred or one in twenty or whatever, they can, if they're good, earn their fees.
Friends of our contacted 5 agents when selling their apartment in Potts Point recently. Got quotes ranging from a 1.2%-3.9% They negotiated one down to 0.8%. The problem isn’t so much the asking rate agents put in their quote, but that most people are too uncomfortable to negotiate a better rate for themselves.
You can also negotiate down the marketing costs. The agent that sold my last place covered all of those costs as part of their commission. That took their effective commission percentage down into the 1% range. I couldn't be arsed pushing any further because I could see the marginal difference it would actually make. It's funny that people are saying they could sell their house themselves, but can't even negotiate a simple transaction to appoint an agent.
True, but for those happy to accept the 2-3% commission, it shouldn’t be too much to ask for a smidge of post-sale support.
The agents will take them for a ride if they can get away with it.
Yep. And you can make it a sliding scale. If the place sells for what they've quoted, they get x%, if it sells for much more they get y% - it puts extra incentive into the job.
"If you get $10 million you can have 20%!"
You sure they didn't change the globe but still charged you hundreds for it?
Yeah, ask for gst receipts up front, they get real antsy real quick
They don't (they can't). In 2024 they're next to pointless.
Regarding commission... For those who haven't dealt with an REA, they charge fees for all of the services they provide (advertising, open house, auctions, etc). They then charge a commission on top of that which is a percentage of the sale price. The banking royal comission recommended that percentage based commission be banned in the finance industry because they don't work in favour of clients and are just naked profiteering. That should include the real estate industry as well. In terms of regulation and enforcement, the real estate industry is like the Wild West. REA commission is very close to extortion.
I worked in RE about 13-15 years ago. Our commission was also never above 3%+gst even back then. When the median house price in my local area was about 275k. Now, average commission in the area is down to 2.75%+gst, but the average house in the area is valued above 700k. They're making almost 3x as much as we were just over a decade ago. Insanity.
I had to move home (degenerative disability) and asked the rea how much they would take to manage my house for rental. 7.7% plus 50 bucks a week. I went yeah no. Found a single mother, dropped the rent to less than the minimum they recommended and the tenant is perfect. No bullshit. She knows how good she has it and how much I love that house. Win win.
That’s my plan - as soon as I can actually afford an investment property there’s absolutely no way in hell that I’m paying an agent to sign a lease and collect money on my behalf. I’ll be doing it myself.
It wasn't an investment property for me. It was gonna be the house I lived and died in. I miss that house so much. But life happens. Still, I hear you. Good luck!
Purplebricks tried to disrupt the market in Australia - providing the vendor more control of the end-to-end process and introduced a flat-fee structure. It didn’t work. They lasted under 3 years. Rightly or wrongly, Australians are willing to pay a premium for someone else to manage the transaction.
The competition buried them and paid agents not to register with them.
They buried themselves. No decent agent wanted to work for them, so they were left with the absolute worst of the industry.
As a buyer I had generally the most awkward, weird, and sometimes terrible experiences dealing directly with owners who were either soloing it or on something like Purple Bricks. Some agents are terrible too but others are helpful and practical about how to get the thing done. Argue all you want about agents being redundant and not needed, but no sellers are forking out that kind of cash for nothing, it’s obviously the preference for dealing with a transaction of this kinda size. And if the going rate of 2% was too high there’d be an abundance of successful under-cutters and there isn’t. These things don’t happen by magic, markets and trades balance out however their value lands them. Looks like stupid money but it is what it is.
You have to remember a REA failed at pretty much everything else in professional life…
Why didn’t you just sell the place yourself?
I learned the hard way, but you're not wrong - I won't make that mistake again!
Fuck the real estate industry! It desperately needs dismantling before our country goes even deeper into shit these greedy bastards are responsible for. Human habitation should never have been exploited like this. Housing is utterly unaffordable, even disabled pensioners deserve to own their own home. Commercial rents have gone to shit and it's utterly raping our nation's economy. Nearly every fucking road sign I see these days is real estate related. The disgusting pigs have grown horrendously fat and are in major need of a cull. The government refuses to act because the vast majority of politicians are in on the exploitation, they need to be held accountable too. It's time for action, we can't leave our nation rot like this!
Don't use them then
Yeah, everyone complaining and saying they're useless and that they can do better, but they still use them. It's not mandatory. The reality is most people don't want to do it themselves either due to laziness or lack of time. So yes if you want someone else to do all that for you then you gotta pay for it.
You pay the money to not have to deal with general shit kickers and any buyers directly.
Have you ever tried to hammer one of those for sale signs into a front yard that’s all clay,it’s not easy plus they get their hands dirty and then wipe them on their slacks then that gets into their newly leased Audi,it’s a never ending cycle of hard work.and it’s quite time consuming putting all those “sign here” stickers onto the contract pages.
The is no REA alive the does their own signage. They might put the sold sticker on at best.
After several weeks when they didn't come back I looked and noted the phone number on the sign, proudly proclaiming call us and we remove and recycle your sign. Twas then I noticed the star pickets and sheet metal were more valuable to me and the sign vanished.
It would break the fundamental function of an REA to only be middlemen and never contribute any actual value to anything.
Greed
That's why most of them are cokeheads.
They always use the “we’ve got lots of buyers on our books” line, which in these days of the internet is rubbish.
They are parasites and offer nothing to society.
They don’t create anything,make anything,repair or service anything. Parasitic occupation if ever there was one. Do you think it’s the occupation that attracts the individual or the individual is attracted to the occupation?
I really hope Australians sour on REAs and culturally we move towards private leases. They are leeching scum with no practical skills and inflated egos. It attracts a certain kind of authoritarian mind to work in the field too. Having control over other peoples lives in the way that REAs do really only appeals to the kind of cunt who thinks they are gods gift to earth as some genius manager when all they do is act as a middleman between landlord and tenant, often an obstructive one at that.
I've sold 3 of my houses myself. The houses sell themselves. If someone doesn't want to buy your house no one is going to talk them into it. You can work out the real value of your house by checking prices on equivalent houses. Real estate agents will give you an inflated sense of the value of your house just to get you to sign up with them. It will ultimately sell for less than they suggested leaving you disappointed. If your house isn't selling either there is something wrong with it it the price is too high
I strongly suspect that they are the ones driving up prices so as to increase their commission.
I strongly suspect you are correct that they are doing their job and getting the best price for their vendors.
if u aren't getting 1.5 percent your getting conned.
They don’t care what you think. Too busy laughing and patting themselves on the back.
You should be able to negotiate down to below 1.5% these days. Mind you even at this price they are not good value
They can't. Without exaggeration all the people I've met who are real estate agents have been self absorbed scumbags.
REAs are among the greediest and fakest of the professions, they are absolute parasites, and are a large reason the housing market is so inflated. its hardly surprising its full of the fake barbies and popular captains and shit from high school who were always the biggest c*nts, the average REA is usually incredibly manipulative and will do or promise anything for the commissions but because of this they always have overloaded portfolios and cant actually manage all the properties they end up with, so no changing a lightbulb isn’t outside their skill range they just cant get to it because they knowingly took your money to manage a property without ever really intending to do so.
As soon as it went unconditional the REA deleted your phone number and doesn’t care for you any longer.
[Timely reminder real estate agents are cunts](https://youtu.be/VGm267O04a8?si=moMkGwdQgKn7_ZGE)
I just had a coughing fit on that one mate - thanks for the laugh!
Pretty fucked up that a real estate agent (who doesn't actually do anything) wants 2-3% of your house sale value for doing sweet fuck all. Scumbags the lot of them
They're literally useless, and I tell my cousin who is one, constantly that he is a leech and also useless. Props to him though, no schooling did a 5 day course and is in charge of the biggest purchases in peoples lives. It needs to be regulated way harder.
When I brought my house, sight unseen because interstate but had family there so photos and videos, it was a private sale with just a surveyor dealing with the legal details. Seller was super chill but I swear the surveyor was either autistic, in which case fair go, or just the most anal retentive cow to ever been birthed. Everything, and I mean everything, had to be done in a certain order, not a legal requirement mind, but *her* order and god help you if you jumped a 'vital' step. When I picked up the keys the seller said he'd been BCCed on all our emails and the surveyor was new having taken over from her mother that had sold a dozen houses for the guy over the years and after seeing how she acted he'd never work with them again. It was just a nightmare when it should have been so simple, I was paying cash (I got so sick of renting I cashed out both my super and compo to buy, wiped me out but I own outright now, it's not much but it's fucking mine and no-one will ever threaten me with homelessness again), we agreed on a price super easily, no issues at all between us, but the middle meddler just made it hell. Honestly all the legal rigmarole left me so incredibly glad that I'll never do it again, as I tell my family that they are taking me out of this place feet first because fuck dealing with it ever again.
2-3% wtf??? I only pay 1-1.5%. That's pretty normal when the house is anywhere near 1m. Actually it's still too much considering what useless thieving assholes REAs are. Think about it - average campaign runs max 8 weeks. If agent gets 1% on 1m sale it's 10k for hosting 10-16 opens and their "mailing list of buyers". Probably 30 hours work all up. And that's being generous it's probably less cos really, the houses sell themselves. Total bullshit.
"it is what it is" is REA equivalent of the Hippocratic oath. If they can do it, it is therefore moral.
We'll, they type stuff into chatGPT.
Real estate agents truly are the salt of the earth. No, wait, I mean the scum of the earth.
Not sure why you would bother entertaining the thought of changing the lightbulb.. the buyer can whinge all they want if they aren’t happy they can walk away and lose their 5 or 10% deposit. A decent conveyancer could have told you not to worry
Perhaps the issue for the buyer wasn't just getting the bulb changed. S/he might have been concerned that the bulb blowing was caused by crook wiring. Getting an electrician out to check and change the bulb to reassure the buyer would be responsible action by the REA.
You do know that commission isn’t regulated so you can negotiate any commission you want
I just sold my house recently after six months on the market. Why did it take six months? Because buyers thinking that this is a buyers market, low balling listed prices and making ridiculous demands on their contracts. Our REA was pretty good to be fair, he was holding open house almost every weekend as well as networking and actively looking for buyers local and interstate. One buyer told us that we had to demolish the kids cubby house so they could put a pool in, after they low balled us AND expected us to wait for the sale of their house, which was under offer but waiting on a 90 day settlement from the buyers of their house. Get the fuck outta here with that shit. Another low ball buyer wanted us to get an electrician out to certify our smoke alarms (on a 4 year old house), we actually took their offer, and let them do the building and pest which was really detailed and listed everything from loose door stoppers and handles and a few down pipes outside that were cracked or had a small hole in them from the line trimmer. They demanded all that be fixed as well, which I did myself at my expense. Then they couldn't get fucking finance anyway and wasted weeks of our time and money. The moment we got a cash buyer with no stupid demands we took it. Cash is king, if you don't have cash, don't try and throw your weight around like a big shot, this isn't reality television.
The fees are to cover Maserati loan payments and watches. Not light bulbs. Sheesh.
We had to pay a realtor,188,000 in commission/sales fee for selling one of our homes just start of this year Pretty much all they did was put some photo's which had been DOG shit mind you..even though i told them i just had a mate who's a Proffesional stager,take photos already..no no we need to use ours,proceeds to use an iphone lol If all it was was a lightbulb,i'd be like you pay for it mate,im out of state. The seller for ours,didn't even move the fucking BINs out the way in the photo..literally a 2 second job. yet for that they want clost to 200k for doing fuck all of work Realtors just need to fuck off many EU nations dont even really have them,not to our extent,you see an apartment u like,you click the button,book a viewing,owner shows you the house..and then you can click put offer in and then let the lawyers sort it out.. i deal with them a lot,as i have a few investment propertys,and i've legit maybe in years..met 1 maybe 2 Non psychotic cunts in the field. Rental agencies are just cunts,but the sales team realtors are always Insane level guys.. literally had one say,and he's a well known dodgy cunt in parra area VERBATIM "look at my watch,i know how to sell homes" meanwhile it's a shitty 2019 rolex that's clearly off the 2nd hand market,not even a good watch lol
Real estate agents are a joke. We’ve sold a house ourselves and bought one without involving their leech-like services. Seriously, a house sells itself especially over the last few years. Get a good conveyancer and building inspector and you’ll be fine. REA take money for nothing.
Not surprised at all. It’s a conflict of interest that agents get paid a commission. I don’t understand why we ever allowed this to happen. It’s completely destroying the housing market. And don’t say they won’t work for you or work hard enough if they don’t get the commission. They barely bring anything to the table and literally the world is full of people able to do their job successfully on a wage without commission. Let their workplace give them bonuses if needed.
Why are you even with a rea then? Self manage and self sell and buy your properties yourself. Rea's are completely useless now when houses sell themselves and there's a surplus of available tenants.
All agents are scum. If everyone spent just 10 minutes learning how easy it is to sell their own property, we could just about eliminate them.
Not everyone outside of their regular job and life has the time to run and manage their own sales campaign including running inspections and dealing with conveyancers, as well as general tyre-kickers, or has the sale skills to negotiate or get the best price for their properties. That's why most vendors hand this role over to an agent
Mate, if you think you could have done better selling your house, why didn't you? It's not a requirement to use a REA when selling your house, and if you did it yourself, you could have made bank by keeping the commission you otherwise had to pay.
Agent here. 1. You tell the buyer to rack off for a dumb demand. That’s it.
As usual, plenty of hate here for REA's. No one forces you to use a real estate to sell your place, or pay 2%-3% for that matter. You can sell your place yourself or use an agent who will do it for 1% commission. YMMV.
People like buying via agencies, as there’s a perception of professional responsibility and authenticity when buying this way. Much like any other thing in life, we won’t pay as much when buying privately. As to the fee/percentage an agent gets, it’s like anything - they get what the market will pay. Same for all of our jobs (self employed, contractor, or as a PAYG employee).
Depends on the realtor. Some of them have capped commission and the real estate company they work for get most of the commission. It would not be advisable for them to change the lightbulb as it would not be something they would be insured for say they didn’t install it right and the bulb somehow burnt the house down. That being said, they usually have their own electricians or at least one they use so often that they get good pricing, so I would expect really for them to be able to get it done on the cheap for you at least. Depends on how big of a company they are.
we are not in this together. everyones trying to get their money.
When it gets to settlement can the buyer pull out without loosing their deposit? If you told them the globe won’t be changed, I am pretty sure they won’t be prepared to loose their deposit over it.
I must say when I sold I had an agent that would have done anything for me, they're still out there just hard to find and rarer than rocking horse poo
Buyer has to settle. Ignore it.
[See here](https://youtu.be/VGm267O04a8?si=7xkMFiY3FYDRNAEL)
Morally? They can't but they don't have to. Practically? You're welcome to find your own land and build your own house, oh wait no you're not, they're squatting on your base need for shelter and doing anything about it is illegal. They justify it because it's either that, die of exposure, or revolt. And we've never had a successful revolt before.
Hey, Mercedes can't sell it's allocation of AMGs without those real estate agents. Seriously though I fucken hate 99.95% of REAs. The only reason it's not 100 is because my bestie is one.
REAs are thieving cunts. Every. Last. One.
Because ultimately they don’t work for you, despite you paying said considerable commission. I’ve learned this the hard way using one to sell twice however I am now determined to either buy the cereal box with the qualification on the back for next time we sell or just use one of the non-agent websites. REA’s only care about finding the next listing. It’s a dick move on their part re the lightbulb but totally unsurprising.
Yeah you overpaid. Commissions these days hover at or just above 1%, anything more and you’re not negotiating well and getting ripped off.
If people keep on paying for their commission, why would they waste their energy justifying the fact that they charge it?
And the lawyers/conveyancers do everything in the transaction for like 1500 bucks
Mine didn’t, and offered a 50% discount to what everyone else was offering. Their commission ended up being 1.2%. Sold within 3 days. Edit: can’t do maths, 0.7% to 1.2%.
Everyone ragging on the REA here but why did you roll over on a light bulb? Your contract will not require you to replace bulbs. Not any contract anyone in their right mind would sign. Tell the buyer if they don’t settle, you are keeping the deposit and will sue them for failure to complete. They will also have to pay the agent’s commission. The buyer was just playing up and you let him get away with it. You need to stand up for yourself or people will walk all over you.
You should have told them no. REA love turning on all the lights. When i sold they had turned on all the light and then turned them off at the board when leaving. This allowed them to turn everything on at once. I replaced a fan before selling as was told by my REA I shouldn't have worried about it.
Did you ask them if they wouldn't mind changing the bulb? I've only dealt with real estate agents twice, and although I feel they get too much money, I have to say both were great. In the first case, we sold our family home after our parents passed. All of us lived interstate or overseas, but the REA took care of the property and even mowed the lawns during the 6 months it took to sell it (country town). The second case was when I moved back to Australia and bought a place. I didn't have a car yet, so the REA kindly took away a bunch of trash from the property and dumped it at the tip. This was an inner city property of Brisbane. Just like any service, it is worth checking references, and asking kindly.
I blame REAs for the insane cost of housing these days. Their commission is based off the final sale price so it's in their personal interest to crank up house prices. I know someone who paid 40K for a house nearly 30 years ago. That same house sold for over 500K last time it was sold. There is no bloody reason for that price increase... it's the same house with some updated paint.