Let’s say that you have applied for the help of a realtor for some reason. You’ll probably get some help from this. For example, saving time if the intermediary agrees without your participation to show the apartment yourself. Also, a professional realtor will save your nerves, taking a flurry of calls from other intermediaries who most often ask the same stupid questions.
The realtor hired by you will advertise on the best sites for the sale of apartments. On many of them, there are many tools that allow you to create the most effective advertising company for your real estate.
How do the intermediaries prevent the sale of the apartment?
But let’s model a situation where you decided to advertise and show your apartment yourself, without any intermediaries. The usual situation is as follows:
- You studied the advertisements for the sale of similar objects and determined the market value of your apartment.
- You create advertisements on specialized sites about selling real estate.
- On the first-second day you receive a flurry of calls from unscrupulous intermediaries (brokers and other fraudsters). They say that they have a buyer for your apartment and ask you for all the information. Usually scammers ask them to send them photos of the apartment (you should never let them do that! about this will be discussed below).
- Especially the unscrupulous swindlers act as follows. Assign a view ostensibly for the buyer. However, they come to it themselves, say that their client at the last moment could not go. But very interested in buying, so the broker should make their own photos of the apartment. Mol, other photo client does not trust. There will also be talk that own photos are needed for publication in some mythical «base». As soon as you hear such a fable, we advise you to immediately expel the swindler from the apartment. And in a good way, without a potential buyer and let a broker into the apartment is not necessary. Another thing is that a broker can bring under the guise of a buyer of his-friend. The main thing is, do not let them take any photos!
- Next you are surprised to find that your apartment advertises by somebody who you do not know. Usually you find out tha there are more than 10 ads. In this case, many of the scam brokers indicate the price is lower than it actually is. Therefore, when sorting ads at price, it is their ad sees the potential buyer.
- An interested person calls not you, but to fake-realtor. How and what they will talk about is not known. Perhaps the broker will just not pick up the phone. Or tell about the apartment some nonsense. And may say that his so-called «fee for services» is several thousand dollars. In general, there is a high probability that the mountain realtor will scare the buyer from your apartment.
How to deal with black realtors, brokers, intermediaries and other real estate scammers?
A normal buyer would be smart enough to look for a property offer directly from the owner. And will only talk to the owner directly. From this rule, of course, there are exceptions. For example, if we are talking about very expensive apartments. Or, if the buyer came to Kyiv from another city and does not know our real estate market. However, in most cases, both seller and buyer are very interested in finding each other without the help of various «dark personalities» or gentlemen of fortune.
Be sure to create a separate phone number for the sale of real estate! And enter it in the ads. After the sale of the apartment you can just tell the buyer your permanent number. And the temporary phone is easy to turn off. Otherwise, the various intermediaries will «cheer» you for years and ask if your apartment has been sold because they have it in some «base».
You have to be prepared for the fact that you have to fight with the advertisements of your property that had been placed without your permission. There are several options here:
- Website administration complaint. The simplest option. In most cases, you will be asked to send documents confirming the ownership of the apartment. Or the original photos from the phone (that is why they cannot be sent to callers). After this announcement intermediaries are removed from the site.
- Request brokers to withdraw advertisement. It is also not superfluous to call the realtor directly and ask to withdraw the advertisement. However, it should be borne in mind that advertising objects without demand is only a variety of fraudsters, so often your request will remain unanswered. It does not matter to the fraudster whether you sell the apartment or not. His task is to find a fool who will pay him for its «services».
- Assignment of views and personal conversation. The extreme case is the appointment of viewing under the guise of the buyer and conducting a personal conversation with an unscrupulous broker. Obviously that comments are unnecessary.
