When the time comes to
sell or lease your property, would-be vendors and landlords increasingly look
to the internet to help shortlist agents that might meet their needs.
Well established
methods of choosing your agent such as re-employing an agent previously used,
adverts in the Herald, recommendations from friends and relatives or visiting
Home Opens to meet agents remain effective methods.
In the on-line space,
REIWA offers reiwa.com Agent Finder; a free, independent, credible source of
finding professional agents. Also occupying the portal space are a myriad of
commercial operators that purport to “find the best agent near you”.
Conducting a Google
search of “Real Estate Agents Fremantle” for example will throw up paid for
adverts for www.localagentfinder.com.au,
www.whichrealestateagent.com.au,
www.openagent.com.au and www.agentselect.com.au
These “intermediaries”
claim they can find you the best agent. The truth is they merely run a portal and a call
centre whereby they contact local agents offering them a lead for a property
listing in exchange for about 20 per cent of their sales commission. Participating
agents competing for the listing seek to cover the cost of the referral by
demanding a higher commission– hardly a consumer benefit – and clients are astonished
to learn their agent is paying a referral in the first place.
The main problem,
however, is that successful, leading agents (the best ones) don’t use these
intermediaries to get business and why would they? The best agents get business
on their merit with no need to pay a referral to an intermediary for running a
portal and slick advertising campaigns. Consumers should know that in using
these sites, you’re not getting access to the best agents, just the least
experienced and most desperate.
These intermediaries
are not the vendor advocates they purport to be. They don’t interview or
thoroughly research all agents and they only put forward those who’ll pay them
a referral.
Disturbingly, the biggest, most popular portal, realestate.com.au has (at no surprise to me) now moved into this space charging agents for leads from would-be sellers. At $199 per lead, realestate.com.au will without doubt seek to increase this should it prove a successful venture with all these additional costs passed onto consumers of real estate services.
By Hayden Groves
REIA Deputy President
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