Real Estate Agents . Has that happened to you, and what can you do about it ?

[4thecat]

Have you ever put in an offer on a property, and the agent can’t be bothered to present it to the vendors ? Because the agent thinks the offer is to low . What are the Rules and Regulations on this, does anybody know.
Cheers

[SAllan]

Legaly the agent must present every offer submitted. If your agent won't present it report them to the office manager and get another agent to present the offer. Either that or contact the owners direct and present it to them explaining why you are doing this.
Cheers

[4thecat]

Well, that was what I thought.
So I did send this to R.E.I.N.Z

Would you be able to tell me, if an agent is obligated to present an offer to a vendor if a prospective purchaser has filled out a S&P Agreement ?

And I got this back :

If I understand you correctly - I reply as follows:- If the S&P agreement is within the vendor (sellers) price range one would expect an offer to be presented, however, there is no rule stating that it must be

[SAllan]

I've not found the R.E.I.N.Z. much help in the past. I felt I was hard done by by an agent in Christchurch and recieved no help from the R.E.I.N.Z. even though I thought I had a good case.
I think I read in this forum that you just have to learn by it and move on to the next deal.
In your case I would ask another agent to submit it on your behalf, could even be from a different agency. if it is a private home and not a rental property go knock on the door. What do you have to lose? They can only do one of three things. Say No, Yes or counter your offer.
Cheers

[4thecat]

Thank you for that, well I do this " knocking on doors" most of the time anyway. (:-)
Having Agreements not presented happened on more than one occasion. That’s why I wanted to know where you stand with it.
I ask the same question to the Auckland branch of the R.e.i.n.z. and they did a "Winston Peters" on it . In other words 5 emails later and I was back at square 1, so resend the original E-mail to them . Sad but true !.

[cube]

If I understand you correctly - I reply as follows:- If the S&P agreement is within the vendor (sellers) price range one would expect an offer to be presented, however, there is no rule stating that it must be

That is contrary to the advice often given on this site - can anybody clarify this point?

cube

[kieran]

I wrote to REINZ several years ago asking this question.

They replied stating the agent MUST present all written offers either in person or verbally.

Somewhere in storage I have a copy of that letter and many of my consulting clients were provided with a copy a few years ago so they could use the letter if necessary. Can't get my hands on it easily but will try to.

My choice when agents fail to co-operate is to explain to the agent that I will have to make the offer through another agent OR direct to the vendor if they are not prepared to present it. I also explain that REINZ have confirmed they must present all offers.

Of course they can present the offer with just a phone call and as a vendor (which I am at the moment too) I don't care how low the offer is. I just want to know what the market is prepared to pay. I wish all vendors had that attitude!

[xris]

Of course they can present the offer with just a phone call and as a vendor (which I am at the moment too) I don't care how low the offer is. I just want to know what the market is prepared to pay. I wish all vendors had that attitude!


I think this is excellent commonsense.

I believe that there is an awful lot of huffing and puffing by buyers who expect agents to drop everything and run around doing exactly what they, the buyers, demand. We should think about how we would feel as vendors. Would we expect to have our agent come to our house, disturbing our evening peace, just to present an offer which was considerably below what we had earlier stated was our absolute bottom line? Or would we rather receive a quick phone call saying what the offer was and who was making the offer, and then put the phone down and get back to our evening relaxation?

As a vendor I would expect my agent to be acting for me, and that includes following my instructions, not necessarily the buyer’s.

I have said it before, the agent has a contractual relationship with the person paying him – invariably the vendor. His only real obligation to the buyer is to be courteous and businesslike.

As a buyer, remember that the vendor is paying an agent, among other things, to protect him from all the worry, face-to-face meetings, negotiations, insults etc, which they might otherwise be exposed to. In effect, the agent becomes the vendor.

As a vendor I would want to be informed of all offers, all comments made by buyers, and all other relevant information. That is the sort of thing I am paying my agent for.

If I had a property on the market for $300,000 and somebody came to my home, knocked on my door and said: ‘Your agent is useless. He won’t present this offer to you, so here it is. It is $240,000, but look, it is cash and the only other clause is due diligence! What do you think?’ I would probably tell him to get off my land – quick.

If as a buyer you want an agent to work for you and not the vendor, then the answer is simple – sign a contract with the agent.

xris

[4thecat]

Well, I am continually on both sides of the fence. One minute I am a vendor and a purchaser the next.
And I have been in a situation where I would have gladly excepted an $240k offer for a $300k property !, just to get rid of the headache ( Development ).
Besides all that, Vendors do not tell real estate agents there true situation , ( if they are in financial strife ) for example. Who in there right mind would do that anyway ?
Besides all that. In the past I have been advised that a Vendor would defiantly not except a offer under X amount of dollars . ( Hence the offer was not even presented ) and only to find out 4 month later that the property sold $ 15k below that figure.

[Glenn]

Perhaps it is time for the public to demand that the Department of Building and Housing set up an independent complaints service for dealing with REINZ and others in the industry.
The world has moved on since the REA was passed all those years ago.
Regardless of the honesty and integredy of many REI members the public perception is not much different from the Used car dealers. (who incidently have abolished their fidelity fund)
A recent case in Nelson they managed to delay the process for a number of years then fined the well known offender $400 which would have been about 5% of the commission he would have made on the deal.
Come on all you honest agents and members of the public. We demand a fair disputes resolution process for alledged disputes. Lets not have the REINZ claiming everyone else is bad and crooked without getting their house in order. Why should they be protected by a handy act to protect their market share.

[xris]

Hello 4thecat,

If you run a search you will see that I have commented on this subject before, so I will try not to repeat myself.

First, I do not want to get into a discussion on individual incidents but stick instead to broader, more general, themes. The reason for this should be obvious, namely that it will usually be hearsay and one sided, with only the partial truth coming out.

Too often people (usually buyers, but often vendors too) only know part of the story and this coupled with the fact that they usually also do not know how the ‘system’ works leads them to draw wildly inaccurate and false conclusions.

Admittedly it is the agent’s job to keep the vendor/client informed of what is happening but this too can be done in any number of ways and is subject to huge variables. It does not help when vendors lie to their agents and treat them as the enemy, as you seem to think is an acceptable practice.

In the past I have been advised that a Vendor would defiantly not except a offer under X amount of dollars . ( Hence the offer was not even presented ) and only to find out 4 month later that the property sold $ 15k below that figure.

My comment on your observation above is this:

The vendor probably did refuse to contemplate an offer below $X in the early stages of the marketing. Later, as time passed and circumstances changed, the vendor may well have then been willing to accept a much lower offer price. Is that the agent’s fault? The agent may for all we know have been constantly advising the vendors from the start that their price expectation was too high, that marketing at such an unrealistic price was potentially counter-productive, and that what often happens in situations like this is that the property goes stale if it does not sell quickly and that vendors often have to accept a much lower price later because they are the only offers coming in. But look, who knows? As I said, there are a million variables and discussions of individual cases are really quite pointless.


xris

[TWT]

How do you find out the actual owners address:
Will the local conuncil provide this information or can you get it from a public record somehow?
If you can get this information ... you can soften the blow to the vendors and still set things up in a way that the agent does not getthier nopse out of join because you side stepped them in the process... although they get the commission anyway if they have exclusive agency representation rights (in the contract).

Cheers....
Kiwi!

[4thecat]

The council in most cases doesn’t give you the information. But they used to do that some years ago.
Best way is to ask the tenant, they sometimes know, or the people living next door. As they are sometimes ask to keep an eye on the property. Also, if the friendly Lawnmower man cuts the lawns, he may know .
Going behind a Agent ( if they have introduced you to the property ) is not a good one, as it can, and usually will, bite you ( or more the seller ) in the Bum, big times.

[Winston001]

Legally the agent must present every offer submitted. If your agent won't present it report them to the office manager.

With respect, nonsense. How about an offer of $1?


The agent works for the Vendor. The fastest way for an agent to lose the confidence of the Vendor (and thus lose the listing) is to present an offer that is miles from the Vendor's price.

If the house hasn't sold after a couple of months then the agent is justified in tendering such an offer. Patience.

[Glenn]

How do you find out the actual owners address:
Will the local conuncil provide this information or can you get it from a public record somehow?
Kiwi!

Generally the owners real names will be on the sale and purchase agreement as vendor.
If it is a company (more and more common) then get the details off the companies office site on the web all for free. I must however admit that often people put their accountants address on this place. The other way is once you have the name of the owner off either the S&P or the companies office. Do a search on Terranet for owners name. You may see the owners name come up for the property you are interested in and also see the house they live in. then you do a good old fashioned white pages search.This all goes up a blind alley sometimes but it does work more often than not.
It does not even hurt to do a search engine search for the owner on the web. You might just be surprised how often you can get a hit there.
Failing all this the good old electorial rolls are wonderful. Remember there are two of them. One for local bodies and one for national elections. Both are done by the NZ Post but sometimes slightly different.
Happy hunting.