Avoid the Middle Man

By Hayden Groves

When the time comes to sell or lease your property, property owners often look to the internet to help shortlist agents that might meet their needs.

Well established methods of choosing your agent such as re-employing an agent previously used, adverts in the Herald, recommendations from friends and relatives or visiting Home Opens to meet agents are other effective methods of finding your preferred agent.

In the on-line space, there’s Google reviews, Rate My Agent and reiwa.com’s Agent Finder; a free, industry owned, credible source of finding professional agents that specialise in your area. Also occupying the portal space are commercial operators that purport to “find the best agent near you”.

Run a Google search of ‘Real Estate Agents Fremantle’ for example, you will find at the top of the page paid adverts for localagentfinder.com.au, openagent.com.au and agentselect.com.au

These so-called “intermediaries” claim they can find you the best agent. Sadly, this is not usually the case. The truth is these operators run a portal and a call centre whereby they contact local agents offering them a lead for a property listing in exchange for about 20 per cent of their sales commission. Typically, participating agents competing for the listing seek to cover the cost of the referral by demanding a higher commission – hardly a consumer benefit – and sellers using these intermediaries are astonished to learn their agent is paying a referral at all.

A major problem with these intermediaries is that successful, leading agents (the best ones) don’t use them to get business because they don’t need to. The best agents get business on their merit with no need to pay a referral to an intermediary for running a portal and buying Google ads. Consumers should know that in using these sites, you’re not getting access to the best agents, just the desperate and least experienced.

These intermediaries are not the vendor advocates they purport to be. They don’t interview or thoroughly research all agents and they only put forward those who’ll pay them a referral.

Don’t be fooled by these ‘middle-men’. They are a lead generation tool for lazy agents and will only recommend agents that will pay them a fee.