Buyer Advocates are valuable allies to have on your property purchasing team whether your are you are buying your new home, first home or investment property. However, not everyone will receive the full benefit a buyer’s agent has to offer. 

Here are 5 people who are better suited to DIY property investing and home buying

The sad reality is that the new generation of Buyer Advocates are no more experienced at buying property than you are. Yet they are charging a professional fee without the professional experience you would expect to go with hiring a professional. 

1. Micro Managers

If you are a micro-manager you will want to control every aspect of the process. You will want to know down to precise detail what your buyers advocate is going to do next and why and you are likely to re-do the work you have paid your buyers agent to do for you. 

If this is you – save yourself, and every buyers agent, from the frustration of having too many cooks in the kitchen and just DIY.

If you do hire a buyers advocate it is likely you will never feel satisfied with the answers you are being given. You will doubt the information provided and spend hours researching to ensure its correct then demand to know why the information you have come up with is different to the information and advice provided by your chosen professional. You will focus on things that are not important all the while thinking that your advocate is just not very thorough or skilled. 

Your Buyers Advocate is most likely extremely experienced otherwise you would not have hired them in the first instance, but in a micro-managers eyes no-one ever can do a good enough job and they feel better when in control and doing the job themselves. 

2) Dedicated to the unicorn brief

Everyone wants the very best of the best. It’s human nature. But most people face reality fairly quickly.

A unicorn brief buyer on the other hand is someone who wants the very best property, coupled with a rare combination of traits that rarely exist on their own let alone exist in combination together and typically want to buy is on a bargain budget where they should feel lucky to buy any property in their chosen area, let alone an exceptionally rare property. 

Essentially the unicorn brief buyer is not ready to face reality and wants to hold out for a property that does not exist. 

A buyers advocate adds a lot of value to the property search and can uncover some great, and rare buys, however one thing we cannot do is create a property that doesn’t exist. 

Smart buyer advocates are quick to let a potential client know if they are being unrealistic and do not take on buyers who choose to remain optimistic for a house that is not going to become available….ever.

Some examples of unicorn briefs are:

• Wanting a 10/10 perfect property with no flaws (they rarely exist) 

• 10/10 property on a 5/10 budget – not going to happen 

• Waiting for a house on 700sqms of land in an area where the block sizes are typically 450-600sqm tops

• Wanting a home within 900m of the train station on a full block of land when their budget only allows them a subdivided house close to rail or a full block further from rail

Sticking to a unicorn brief will mean you will not get a result regardless of whether you hire a buyers agent or DIY. 

You may as well save your cash and not get  a result on your own

OR

Listen to your advocate and make the required adjustments you need to make to get a successful result. 

3. Not committed to making a purchase

Nothing is more rewarding to a buyer advocate than working with great, teachable clients who truly want a result and are willing to be guided to get that result. 

On the other hand, working with a buyer who is not committed to purchasing is like torture for a buyers agent. Which is why smart advocates will not take on clients who are not committed to purchasing (unless they pay a full or a hefty fee upfront to ensure the advocate is remunerated for their time and effort) and will vet buyers heavily before allowing them a spot on their client roster. 

If you have a wish list of items you are not negotiable on you had better hope that a) you have chosen a suburb where those things are achievable and b) you have the budget to back up your wish list. As a general rule, the larger or more specific your brief is the longer the property search will take and the more money you will need to have to secure your perfect, uncompromised pad. 

If you don’t have a budget to match your brief you need to ask yourself, am I willing to make compromises I am comfortable with so that I can secure a patch of dirt I can call my own? If not, are you only willing to make a purchase if you hit every single item on your wish list, even if that means you will never purchase? 

If its the later a buyers agent will not be able to help you. What we can help you with however is understanding what changes your brief will require to make it realistic and workable. 

With a realistic and workable brief you will likely have a property as quickly as a week to 6 weeks of signing with an advocate. 

Here’s the issue with too much education, but not enough that it has turned into action 

• Know enough to be dangerous 
• Wants to learn how to do the BA’s job 
• Tries to replicate the work the BA has done but arrives at the wrong conclusion 
• Understands conceptually how things work, but do not have enough experience to understand the subtleties  – this causes a massive brain fart and confusion because often the subtleties go against the general advice they have heard everyone else give 

What to do 

Recognise that if you have hired an expert to do the job for you. 

They are not there to mentor, educate or train you to become better, so be mindful of how much you are asking of them. If you find yourself always asking your advocate to explain every little thing they are doing and why, and what’s next….STOP

Just let them do their job,

if you want to learn precisely how to DIY next time, hire a mentor.

It is easier to do a job then it is to train someone else to do the job. So be respectful of the time and remember the service you have paid for is to get the job done for you, not mentor you through the process in precise step-by-step, explain everything in detail process.

With 15 years dedicated to Buyer Advocacy, Lisa Parker is a genuine masters at the craft and would be delighted to assist you with your purchase. If you would like to get in contact with us to book a complimentary phone consultation.