Yeah Justin Clark

Fortunately for me, I did not give you the complete story so, though you are trying my idea (behind my back) you will not get it to succeed.

Peter-John said:

The reason why I liked the private property website was the  zero commission and it was an alternative to all the estate agents out there.

Allowing estate agent listings kind of moves away from what private property started out to achieve.

Just a thought…….

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Hi i am an estate agent from Realnet Vereeniging, we tried Private Property last year and had a lot buyers asking why must they pay us commission when they can buy the property through the seller and cut out the Agent. My answer to the buyer was the following: We the Estate Agents do alot of work for the commission we get on the property, its not just about signing an offer to purchase its what happens after the offer is signed!!! We always get the short end of the stick as potential buyers see us as Sharks in the Market trying to make a quick buck. Its further than the truth, we work 24/7 7 days a week and still sometimes get stabbed in the back by buyers who go behind our back. Its time the  Estate Agent Unite and take back the market with a bang!!! The buyers out there are not aware that we as Estate Agents do not get a salary we work on a commission basis, and if a buyer goes and buys the house behind our back, he is taking away our bread and butter that help us feed our famillies which is not fair. I have started again to market my properties on Private Property and i am going to see how it goes this year. i have also built a good relationship with my sellers not to sell the property privately if a potential buyer tries to buy it behind my back. I as the Agent am pulling out all the stops to try and make it work for me this year. Hopefully i will have good success with private property as i have marketed it as a good tool for seller who are now gatvol of empty promises from other estate agents and of course overpricing of the property as welll.

Guy said:

Yeah Justin Clark

Fortunately for me, I did not give you the complete story so, though you are trying my idea (behind my back) you will not get it to succeed.

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What are you on about dude? You can't even disclose your name (unless your name is really Guy), how do we even to begin figure out what you are talking about?

I use PP a lot and I recently bought a property from a private individual and saved R60 000 in "commission" – the estate agents were marketing this property for R60 000 more than the buyer wanted. In effect the estate agents overprice a property or squeeze the seller so they walk away without any profit. In many cases the estate agent can make a deal unaffordable for the buyer. I have a number of properties and as a rule I dont work with estate agents as they are a rip off – an offer to purchase form costs R30 so please tell me were do all the other costs come from??? The rest of the work is done by attorneys. Most properties advertised by agents are shockingly poor in content – private sellers are more open to telling you about the property's exact size, location etc. If you phone agents they are very sketchy about knowlege of the properties they try to sell.

I prefer to do my own resreach on PP and other estate agent sites – the estate agents are normally at the upper limit of the asking price of a property – private sellers are in the middle to lower end.

Personally I think PP has gone backwards by allowing estate agents to bombard their website – PP were the first for the private seller/renter now there are a number of new sites that cater for the private seller/renter so PP will become just another estate agent property site which will be a pity because it really served the private seller/renter well in the past.