Rycki and Kylie Batchelor, a couple from Mackay, decided to place their investment property in Bundaberg for sale by auction with Harcourts Bundaberg. The property failed to sell at auction and agent Ben Gough ended up purchasing the property from the couple. But what Rycki and Kylie Batchelor didnt know was that, on the same day they got $252,000 for selling their home to Ben Gough, the home was on-sold to another buyer for $297,000.
Watch "Today Tonight Story Regarding Ben Gough" on Realty Tube Australia – Real Estate Videosouch!! What an incredibly risky and silly thing to do for about 15 grand, which is probably all he would have made on the deal after stamp duty, legals and tax.
K
do a google search on don't sign anything
it is a book that tells you all about this sort of dealing.18/02/09 NORMAL SALE 252,000 BATCHELOR RYCKI JAMES
18/02/09 NORMAL SALE 297,000 GOUGH BENJAMIN WAYNE
The things people do ..hhmmmHere is more on the story
http://www.reao.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=17049#post17049Hopefully his career is shot now, cheers for that website though, Realty Tube Australia, didn't know there was one.
I was under the impression (obviously wrongly) that it was the agent's duty to act in the best interest of the owner. How could the agent have been acting in the vendor's interest if he was able to offload the property to someone else on the same day? How long was the agent working on his own deal instead of the vendor's deal?
My heart bleeds for the agent for having given up his commission on the sale and cutting his agency out of about $10k (more profit for him).
Come on Scott
Surely you have been around long enough to know that agents don't act in the vendors' best interests; they act in their own best interests!
K
A suprise? obviously not
In two recent cases, one in NSW and the other in Victoria, one agent was banned from selling real estate for ten years and the other agent was sentenced to three years in prison. Both agents had bought their clients' properties for well under the true market value and had then re-sold them for a profit. Ben Gough bought his former clients' property for well under market value and then re-sold it for a profit.
All you need to do is be diligent, know the market and sell it yourself.
Honestly, im 20 years old with my first property and managing it myself.
Forget agents, property managers etc etc, hence avoiding these hefty ludicrous fee's by the agents. They charge thousands of dollars, to do something that you can do yourself?…
Unless of course you are the astute investor with too many properties to handle by yourself. However, if you have 1-4 properties, this should be easy enough for one to maintain/manage/sell themselves. It is not that hard….
nataliebranson wrote:However, if you have 1-4 properties, this should be easy enough for one to maintain/manage/sell themselves. It is not that hard….Until something goes wrong. There are probably hundreds of posts on this forum about how managing a property yourself can go terribly wrong.
I congratulate you for being so proactive at such a young age but I think that for most people, property management is out of their realm. I have always had a property manager (and good ones are absolutely worth their fees). Even now, when I only have one tenanted property, I still have it managed. I am just not good at it and would much rather pay someone else to manage it than do it myself. It's all fine and good when you have an easygoing tenant, but if you have a tenant who is late paying rent, or has a pet when the lease says no pet, or has friends who trash the house, or takes you to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal as soon as you something that is not within the legislation (however inadvertantly) …; that's when things get hard.
And I don't know whether this is the case any more, so I am happy to be corrected, but my understanding was that the majority of insurance companies won't give you Landlord Protection Insurance if you manage the property yourself.
Just my two cents' worth.
K
Hi K,
I appreciate your response there, and in complete agreeance. Dont get me wrong, I am not naive at all when it comes to managing properties by oneself. Many variables coming into play which can make the managing it yourself side very difficult.
I guess I am lucky enough to have good tenants. The more properties I acquire, I guess I will learn from experience, and knowledge gained from not having property managers.At this point, just trying to minimise costs, for maximum returns. There will be a time, where I will find a need for managers, and cant be bothered doing it myself. At this stage, I am enjoying it now though, as I am quite a diligient/organised person, so it gels well with me at the moment.
I completely agree though, having the property managed would be peace of mind, to not have to deal with the problematic tenants, when all could go wrong.
Did you see on Today tonight this week that harcourts the real estate agency that he worked for have said that he is no longer welcome at their real estate, that he is not a suitable person to be a franchisee? However, they still ahve not repaid the money that was stolen from the vendors.
Hopefully, there will be a happy ending for the vendors soon.
Sonya
I Agree with K,
It is all well and good when the renter pays their rent and keeps the property neat and tidy. There are many things to go pear shaped when you deal with renters direct!! How would you confront them for rent?? debt collection is not easy!!! ( i have some experence in that). What happens if they trash the place?? Tenant selection and so on.One big thing for me is rental increases, I increase my rents every 6-12 months, I find having an agent send them a formal letter is much more effective than ringing them up for more money!!! especailly when they have got to know you personally.
I find it much easier for an agent to send me a statement at the end of the year than to try to work out everything myself.
All this for $6-8 dollars per hundred. I think its well worth it. it frees you to work on your next property investment!!!Finally, if you have more than one property, you can get a discount in the management fees. I have with mine.
Another finally- I also bought my first property before the age of 21, so hi five to you nataliebranson.
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