Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Season's Greetings to you all

Just a quick message to say, season's greetings! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have fantastic new year. Especially if you had a crappy year this year. Personally this one was pretty great for me, but let's hope next year is even better.

I'd also like send good cheer to those who celebrate Festivus. Enjoy the Festivus pole and stay away from distracting tinsel.

And if you don't celebrate either of these traditions, peace and goodwill to you too.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

Scum of the Earth

When someone you know or a member of your family gets royally screwed over by another person you just can’t help but lose a little more faith in humanity. I am telling this story to make others aware that it’s not only buyers who should, ‘beware’, but also sellers. Especially if you are selling a house, even when in a hurry, do your homework and find out what a reasonable price for the house actually is.

I must say that Real Estate Agents were always high on my list of dodgy professions, but a recent incident has moved them to the top of the list.

Earlier this year, my grandma moved into a nursing home, and to afford the massive deposit for her to stay there, my mum had to sell her parents unit. It was located in a very nice suburb, close to shops, schools, etc. Although it was getting on a bit and needed some work, there was not a huge amount that needed to be done to it. My mum was under time constraints to sell it and so went to only one Estate Agent and trusted that they were professional experts and would try and get her the best price for the place.

At first my mum was told by the agent that it was probably worth about $300k , but after a subsequent visit, apparently noticed more faults with the place and dropped the estimate to between $200 and $250k. My mum semi-joked that the agent was probably selling it to a friend and was looking to get a decent price for them. She also believed that the people who were buying it would be moving in and living there. Ultimately she sold it for around $250k, believing that was the best price she could get.

Cut to a number of months later and my mum sees the unit back on the market. She even went to the open day and noted that they had probably spent a few thousand dollars on tearing the carpets up and polishing the floor boards, as well as painting the place and doing some other superficial work to make it look prettier. Then imagine my mum’s surprise when the place now sold for just over $450k! A far cry from the max $250k, the SAME REAL ESTATE AGENT had quoted her a few months earlier!!

I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but it doesn’t seem a stretch to suggest that the agent saw my mum as being a bit naive about house prices and saw a chance to take advantage of that and sell cheaply to a buddy (and pocket one commission), then pocket a second larger commission after the new owners had touched the place up.

If anyone has relatives in a nursing home, you know how expensive those places are and my mum could have done with the extra money to go towards paying for her parents to be well cared for, but that scum f**k agent wouldn’t give a damn about anything, but lining his own pocket. Personally I hope he burns in hell.

Angry rants aside, if anyone reading this is thinking about selling theirs or another property, I hope you remember this kind of scam, especially if you have even an inkling that the place should be worth more than you’re quoted by one person. Get second and third opinions, especially from expert third parties. And in the words of Fox Mulder, “Trust no one.”