Myth #7: Auckland Apartment Sellers have No Way of Getting Out of a Sole Agency Agreement

Apartment Specialists Podcast No: 24

Summary:

In this podcast, I discussed about the myth of the sole agency and the reason why you need to get out of it.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Andrew Murray, Apartment Specialist, the Auckland apartment market. Today, I'm going to be talking about the myth of the sole agency. The fact that, you can't get out of it. The thing is, you can.

I often get called by this guy, "Andrew, I'd like you to represent me. You've been recommended by Joe Blogg because the agent that I'm with at the moment is just not working for me". For number of reasons, it could be promises they haven't kept. Or it could be that they're just not getting along.

Now, real estate is an interesting industry. And the Auckland apartment market's where you can't try before you buy. The agent promises the world - and if they don't deliver - you're stuck with them for 90 days. The same thing is this: if you've got a vendor that has to sell on a certain time frame for various reasons -  generally because of financial commitments - and it means they have to go through an agent they don't want to go through or they don't feel are doing the best job for them.  And often, this leads to accepting offers that they didn't want to accept.

The key thing here is to remember as the vendor, you are in control. Make sure you are always in control because the problem with the real estate industry - especially in apartment market from my opinion is - the vendor loses control when they sign that sole agency and they need to get that control back. They need to better dictate the terms. They need to be able to hold the agent accountable.

So when you find the agent who you want to represent you, ask to have a clause added in the agreement saying you can terminate that agreement if you feel they're not representing you or they're not delivering what they promised. So it's their business loss, because what other industry can you actually lock someone in? So remember that. And that should really, really help you because it's also going to make them work harder. Because they know that if they don't, they'll lose the job or they'll lose you as a customer. And that's how it should be as it is in every other industry.

I hope that helps. That's a really, really an important one that I feel very passionate about. And so remember that.

Next week what I'm going to do is, I'm going to talk about another myth - that you know your apartment is getting sold or undersold to a trader to be resold because you don't. And I'll give you a few tips on how you can tell.

Cheers! Bye!