No trust, no business

“Hey, it’s for you.”

“Who’s that?”

“No idea, probably an agent asking you to sell the house.” We get such calls at least once a week.

Hubby sat still, with a ‘you fix it, don’t bother me’ look on his face.

I didn’t press the ‘hold’ button so the caller overheard us and raised his voice from the receiver.

“No, no, I’m not asking him to sell his house. I am from Far East and we want to invite Mr. xxx to view some houses.”

Oops, sorry.

These days there’re more flyers than letters in our mailbox.

The flyers are all about property new launches, or requests from property agents to sell our house.

I believe most people prefer to engage property agents through acquaintances or referrals, especially when they’re selling their own residence.

I wonder how many people will give marketing efforts to a property agent whom they have never met before.

Can you imagine a stranger bringing potential buyers (more strangers) to see your place?

Will you suspect the agent hiding anything from you at times?

I had four properties sold by my own property agent in 18 months.

After I sold one of my properties, another property agent who used to lease that property for me learned about the sale and commented,

“What? Only $xxxK? I could have easily sold $30 to $50K higher for you!”

Of course I know how any sale can be pushed higher. There are many agents and sellers in this market who will do anything to sell properties at the top price.

But I am also aware that these transactions almost always come with special conditions — which I don’t think it worths to take the risk.

Even in nil of that, honestly, I am not very keen to pocket that extra tens of thousands somebody else offer.

For me, the peace of mind from engaging the service of someone I can truly trust is beyond money.

I tried to sell one of my properties in 2008 when the property market was overheated. Then came the financial crisis.

My property agent came back with an offer from a buyer. I was hesitating whether to take it or not.

She could simply say ‘take the offer now before the prices drop further’.

Instead, I remember she said this,

“Well, the choice is yours. But the market is going down now. If you can wait, I think you should withdraw the sale from the market.”

Obviously, she saw that things were only going to get worse. She knew that the days ahead would be tough for property agents. She understood that now it’s time she closed any deal possbile and pocketed the commission for the rainy days.

But she never did that. She’s aware that it’s not in the best of my interest to do so.

And over the years, she’s the one who liaised between my tenants and her contractors to get the repairs done. She could have easily added some ‘management fees’ or inflated the repair costs with the contractors.

But instead of doing so, she bargained to get the most reasonable prices, settled the bill on behalf of me first, and sent me the invoices later.

If she doesn’t mind forgoing those ‘money’, why do I need to chase that extra $30K?

When there’s trust, there’s business.


Since 2006, my property agent has been helping me with all the leasing and selling of my properties. If you also need her help for your property matters, you can send me a request here.