Real estate agents top complaints list
12:00a.m. 8th January 2009
The majority of Sunshine Coast real estate agents do the right thing barring a few exceptions.
That was the call from Real Estate Institute of Queensland Sunshine Coast chair Jean Hamer yesterday after Queensland agents received a bad 2008 report card from the Office of Fair Trading.
New figures showed problems with real estate sales and rentals scored among the most number of complaints in Queensland last year.
Residential property management topped the list of problem products, with 493 complaints made to the Office of Fair Trading.
Faulty motor vehicles were next on the list with 332 complaints, followed by residential property sales, which scored 325 complaints.
But Ms Hamer said the majority of local real estate agents were "very good".
"Sometimes a new salesperson gets out of hand but there are a lot of long established agents on the Sunshine Coast," she said.
Ms Hamer said real estate agents like Darren Beck, a former Buderim agent who was prosecuted last year for stealing rental payments and bond money, were few and far between.
"They are rare. You might get two or three of those a year," she said.
The Office of Fair Trading received more than 108,000 complaints and queries in total last year.
Gift and discount vouchers, lotteries, rainwater tanks and computers were all high on the list of complaints.
The Office of Fair Trading took 120 complaints to court or tribunals and issued 900 infringements, four enforceable undertakings and 3,000 warnings.
Acting Attorney General and Minister for Justice John Mickel said anyone who thought they may have been ripped off or treated unfairly should raise the issue with the trader first.
Consumers can contact the Officer of Fair Trading on 131304 or can download a complaint form from www.fairtrading.qld.gov.au.
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Recent Comments
I have also put one real estate guy into the rta.
for not producing the forms to enter my house when it was up for sale.
word of mouth is a powerful tool.
Car salesman has to be second on my list.
Seems OFT could only justify taking action on 4% of them.
Coping with complaining tenants would not be an easy job.
Come back to reality......
About time they took a good look at themselves.
This aside, they are Overpaid for what they do.
Other agents I came across in my search to purchase were in general also very credible.
Check out:
http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2008...
As more options become available to bypass Real Estate Agents , ie Internet, the Real Estate Agents get more defensive.
Here on the Coast there are far too many offices using far too many agents given the amount of sales volume they turn over. Theses agents are constantly fighting over listings and commissions, many times to the detriment of the customer.
Look in their windows and their advertisements and you would think they have a big turnover. If you look at the stats of completed sales versus properties advertised it's obvious this is not the case.
I've been involved in 10 completed property transactions in the last few years using many different agents. In EVERY instance I had problems with them, eventually even going to Court.
In QLD the agents prepare the contracts, in other states this is done by a solicitor, big problem. In one contract for the "Description of Property" they listed my Post Office Box ! Another took 4 weeks to get the right pictures in the paper/Internet ! After almost every Open House they left doors and windows open.
They use a standard REIQ form always in their favor, if you try to change it they get annoyed.
Several agents insisted their commission was 2.5%, when in actual fact the MAXIMUM commission is 2.5% and negotiable.
Real Estate Agents are just the purveyors of one of the basic human requirements - a roof over your head - yet their requirements are only a training course of a few weeks, a big ego and a thick skin.
With the internet available, vendors should consider selling privately.
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