Ever wonder how agents do their search of property listings? How different is it for an experienced agent compared to a direct buyer? We have compiled all the tips on improving this search process and more!
Summary:
An agent and direct buyer search for property units differently. Buyers look at photos much more than agents does. Use price as a strategy to conduct filtering of listings and only the physical viewing can allow a buyer to feel the home for themselves.
Looking for Units
For buyers that engage Aaron to help in their bid to find their ideal unit, the sourcing and search usually goes in two ways:
Buyer goes through listings and advertisements themselves and identifies their preferred ads to send to Aaron to help liaise for viewings and negotiations.
Buyer provides a set of criteria, eg. budget, location, size, to Aaron and gets him to source potential units.
There usually is a significant difference between the units sourced despite most listings coming from the same platforms online. Propertyguru is a platform that's popular amongst agents particularly at the cost to put up ads and listings help act as a filter to weed out potentially deceptive or dummy listings.
So what's the main difference between how agents might do it and how direct buyers might do it. Direct buyers tend to do a lot more browsing, scrolling through units and looking at photographs. For agents, photographs are the least of their concern, while sorting and filtering is the main method to go about finding realistic units.
Real estate photos
Agents tend to place less emphasis on the photos provided in the listings because these are 'real estate photos'. The photos are taken specifically to be attractive to buyers, and thus might not fully reflect the situation of the unit. Definitely though, nice professionally done up photos tend to invite a lot more enquiries and viewings.
Where buyers tend to look at reno or photos, agents place more emphasis in looking for a unit's affordability in accordance to the buyer's situation. There is no point enjoying the process of window shopping and home touring for units that are beyond one's budget or unable to meet one's expectations.
At the same time, it's important to keep in mind the reality of the property market, to understand what is available and what is just next to impossible, instead of sticking to one's own expectations and wants. This leads us to the next point.
Requests of buyers
There are a huge variety of special requests from buyers, which often are impossible to find out through listings. Examples of such requests include wanting a 'rundown' unit or a unit with 'unblocked views', or wanting a view with greenery . Such requests are hard to fulfill based on looking at listings alone and have to be discovered only upon physical viewings.
Potentially, these units can be found only if one already knows there is greenery in the area, or if the units in the blocks face a certain direction with unblocked views, otherwise, such details are really hard to get from looking at listings.
So how shall one do it?
Filtering by Price
The main tip is to consider price above all, and filtering accordingly. As an experienced agent, Aaron is able to ascertain the selling price by communicating with the seller agent. From the pricing of the units, it would be easier to find out which units are affordable whilst meeting the criteria, most if not all, set by buyers.
As long as prices are reasonably affordable, then it will make perfect sense to arrange for physical viewings. This sounds as if the agent is looking to close the deal fast or 'do less work'. But if we look at it practically, this makes sense in helping the buyer find their ideal units quicker and better.
Therefore, using prices as a means of eliminating unsuitable units no matter the photos, an experienced agent is able to make the search for an ideal unit far more efficient and effective.
Unit viewing
The proof of the pudding is in the eating, the proof of how much a unit is suitable for purchase is in the viewing. No matter how the listing seems perfect in terms of price, location, size, etc, it's most important to be physically present in the unit to determine if you feel comfortable or not. Viewing the unit allows one to judge the vibes and sense of security and comfort while living in the space.
Thus, this stage of the property search is often the most important. As long as the initial shortlist is compiled of listings that are of reasonable pricing, Aaron is more than willing to go through multiple physical viewings with buyers, to ensure they find the unit that suits them the best.
Conclusion
We have gone through the various ways an experienced agent works compared to a direct buyer during the property search process. The pricing and real asking price of a unit often shares clues of whether the property meets your criteria and its affordability in relation to your budget. Hence, learn to use the right filters to help shortcut and improve this search process!
Watch Aaron explain the differences between how agents and buyers look through property and learn his tips on finding the ideal choices!