Advice needed to choose realtor to sell a condo

[bkksiam]

I'm looking for advice/suggestions/information about choosing a company + agent to sell my condo in Bangkok (satorn/yannawa area). 

There are three different companies -Homegate, century 21 and another on the soi but I'm not sure that they reach a wide market.

I know there is e.g., Re/max, Cebre, Knight Frank etc. but I'm not sure which one might be more likely to sell my property.

I am assuming that one can only list with one company at a time and that commission is around 5%.

When I purchased, I dealt with the owner only (no agent).

Any recommendations? Dos? Don'ts?

 

[KittenKong]

You can list with as many agents as you want and commission is 100% negotiable.

 

Dont believe a single word that any real estate agent says here. They are completely unregulated and unprofessional.

[vision]

I am looking at buying a condo but also interested in advise about a realtor.   

 

Also last time I was out last year prices had been down for quite a while.   Have condo prices started to go up yet or are they still mostly flat?

 

[smutcakes]

At the end of the day if your property is unique, well priced in a desirable area then all agencies will want to do sole agency, and it is in your and the agencies interest to do sole agency with one agent.

If your property is 10 a penny then it is in both your and any agencies interest to have multiple agents.

[KittenKong]

2 hours ago, smutcakes said:

At the end of the day if your property is unique, well priced in a desirable area then all agencies will want to do sole agency, and it is in your and the agencies interest to do sole agency with one agent.

How could it be in the vendor's interest? As far as I can see sole agency only benefits the sole agent, which of course is why they want to do it.

 

Unless perhaps you are suggesting that in return for sole agency the agent will reduce their commission to a sensible 1 or 2%? In which case, I can see your point.

[smutcakes]

2 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

How could it be in the vendor's interest? As far as I can see sole agency only benefits the sole agent, which of course is why they want to do it.

 

Unless perhaps you are suggesting that in return for sole agency the agent will reduce their commission to a sensible 1 or 2%? In which case, I can see your point.

The agents as sole agents will obviously want to sell at the highest possible price as their commission is based on sales price. If the property is likely to be highly desirable a single well known agent will be able to market it widely to other agents and all the market as they know its a good property and will be confident of selling it. In a property like this having multiple agents approaching multiple possible buyers you will just end up with a massive mess of people all making bids with no structure or process. Having one motivated agent overseeing the sale and controlling the whole process is a much cleaner and easier way for all to maximize price. Having a mutliple agent crap suit will only end up annoying possible buyers as there would be no structure to the sales process.

 

Obviously if the agent is very confident of making a sale, you are likely to be able to reduce the commission level.

[KittenKong]

5 hours ago, smutcakes said:

The agents as sole agents will obviously want to sell at the highest possible price as their commission is based on sales price.

A common fallacy, frequently put about by agents.

 

Look at it logically: would you rather sell a property easily for (say) 10MB and get (say) 5% commission ie 500,000B, or would you rather put in a huge amount of effort to sell it for 11MB and get 550,000B commission? I know which I would rather do, and it's exactly what agents would rather do.

 

No, the flat-rate commission model does not encourage agents to get a high price: it encourages them to try to settle fast.

 

5 hours ago, smutcakes said:

In a property like this having multiple agents approaching multiple possible buyers you will just end up with a massive mess of people all making bids with no structure or process.

LOL. This is Thailand. Even finding one interested buyer would be a miracle for most properties, and the idea of several excited people making bids for the same property is clearly nonsensical. That said, if such a magical property did exist here then some sort of auction or bidding process would get the best price.

[madisongy]

I am selling my 53sqm condo on Sukhumvit near Phrakanong BTS in the 6.5 million range, and I'm planning to try posting it everywhere I can to avoid the realtors altogether.  Craigslist, Thaivisa and Prakard are the sites that I know about.   Not sure if I can list on Hipflat, but I'd like to.

I'm interested in the for sale by owner process, if anyone has any information on that.   I'm in the fortunate position of not being in any particular hurry to sell.

[vision]

10 hours ago, KittenKong said:

This is Thailand. Even finding one interested buyer would be a miracle for most properties, and the idea of several excited people making bids for the same property is clearly nonsensical. 

From that statement I assume your opinion is that not much has changed in the year I have been absent and it's still a buyers market.  I have been waiting for an upturn to buy but this is going on several years now and the market still seems stagnant.  Makes one curios as to why so many condos are being built if there is already a glut?

[smutcakes]

10 hours ago, KittenKong said:

A common fallacy, frequently put about by agents.

 

Look at it logically: would you rather sell a property easily for (say) 10MB and get (say) 5% commission ie 500,000B, or would you rather put in a huge amount of effort to sell it for 11MB and get 550,000B commission? I know which I would rather do, and it's exactly what agents would rather do.

 

No, the flat-rate commission model does not encourage agents to get a high price: it encourages them to try to settle fast.

 

LOL. This is Thailand. Even finding one interested buyer would be a miracle for most properties, and the idea of several excited people making bids for the same property is clearly nonsensical. That said, if such a magical property did exist here then some sort of auction or bidding process would get the best price.

Not everyone buys a tin pot generic piece of crap in central Pattaya where yes there is limited or no demand, in which case having multiple agents and marketing channels is the only chance of selling it.

 

There are however condominiums with high demand for resale units, where people actively look for units for sale within buildings. Its pretty useless even debating with you, as you have such a negative view of all and everything Thai and its people you would never acknowledge that there are many Thais out there who take pride in their work and pride in achieving the best for their client.

[KittenKong]

8 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

Not everyone buys a tin pot generic piece of crap in central Pattaya where yes there is limited or no demand, in which case having multiple agents and marketing channels is the only chance of selling it.

 

There are however condominiums with high demand for resale units, where people actively look for units for sale within buildings.

I see many thousands of units for sale in Bangkok also, with little apparent demand.

 

It appears that you are talking about a niche market that may represent just one or two percent of all property for sale here. If so, you may be correct. But to generalise from that to all property in Thailand is clearly nonsensical.

 

 

11 minutes ago, smutcakes said:

there are many Thais out there who take pride in their work and pride in achieving the best for their client. 

I dare say that there are some, but they are not the majority by far. And in the real estate business (just like used car sales) they form an even smaller part of the whole. Still, if you want to think they are all sweetness and light, by all means dream on.

[KittenKong]

46 minutes ago, vision said:

From that statement I assume your opinion is that not much has changed in the year I have been absent and it's still a buyers market.  I have been waiting for an upturn to buy but this is going on several years now and the market still seems stagnant.  Makes one curios as to why so many condos are being built if there is already a glut?

If anything I would say that the market is even quieter now. Many agents themselves say this if you read their monthly "blogs".

 

Selling new condos is a very different business to selling used ones, and for some unknown reason many Thais and non-Thais seem to be easily tempted into buying off-plan units in buildings that are unlikely to ever be popular or more than partially full.

[KittenKong]

6 hours ago, madisongy said:

 I'm in the fortunate position of not being in any particular hurry to sell.

As indeed are many, many others.

 

You can advertise on Hipflat as a private owner, as far as I know. I've certainly seen listings on there that appear to be by individuals. If your building is a popular one - and these do exist - then an ad on the lobby noticeboard may generate results.

 

Inevitably, the best way to ensure a sale is to drop the asking price to a sensible level.

[smutcakes]

8 minutes ago, KittenKong said:

I see many thousands of units for sale in Bangkok also, with little apparent demand.

 

It appears that you are talking about a niche market that may represent just one or two percent of all property for sale here. If so, you may be correct. But to generalise from that to all property in Thailand is clearly nonsensical.

 

 

I dare say that there are some, but they are not the majority by far. And in the real estate business (just like used car sales) they form an even smaller part of the whole. Still, if you want to think they are all sweetness and light, by all means dream on.

Which is why i mentioned in my original post "if your property is unique, well priced in a desirable area". Out of interest are you buying, selling and renting a lot of condos?

[KittenKong]

2 hours ago, smutcakes said:

Which is why i mentioned in my original post "if your property is unique, well priced in a desirable area".

Is the OP likely to have such a property? I think not. In fact by their very nature condos are rarely unique. My own condo is very unusual, but there are at least a half-dozen almost identical ones in my building, so I would never call it unique.

Either way, if the OP does have such a unique and highly desirable condo then he can probably bypass agents altogether and promote his own sale, along the lines of an auction as I mentioned. He certainly has nothing to gain by listing it with just one agent, unless perhaps by doing so he can get the down to 1 or 2%, as mentioned.

 

2 hours ago, smutcakes said:

Out of interest are you buying, selling and renting a lot of condos?

No. One is more than enough, thanks. I dont need the money and I certainly dont need the hassle.

[Number 6]

I'm a potential buyer. I don't want to to deal with agents at all. The costs are wholly unwarranted and I don't even trust them to show up to have me look about. I'm not paying any fees to an agent, that's the sellers issue.

 

The agents will list in the exact same places online, often use the exact photos and then there are the ones that use promotional photos decade old and pic of common areas they've stolen from the interwebs.

 

Just list it yourself. Might even sell faster.

 

[Number 6]

On 8/8/2018 at 8:03 AM, vision said:

From that statement I assume your opinion is that not much has changed in the year I have been absent and it's still a buyers market.  I have been waiting for an upturn to buy but this is going on several years now and the market still seems stagnant.  Makes one curios as to why so many condos are being built if there is already a glut?

I am of the opinion this is largely due to cheap money and there is a bit of a land grab on by developers. The old adage...to a carpenter, every problem looks like a nail and every solution a hammer. They are not diversified so they do what they do. I would suspect the strategy is also to throw up as many units as they can before shit really hits the fan. At that point, no one is building, but they have their buildings up. Developers at that point will in fact stop building bc they must. It strikes me that huge developers are fairly well insulated from market forces both domestic and international although I have a suspicion more money is borrowed from abroad than we will know until the shtf.

 

Thais are not very sophisticated financially and much of their purchases are idiotic. Cars, condos...then there are the flippers. This seems insane to me, the market is just not that dynamic and the offerings quite banal. A box is a box is a box. The return from my farang POV is puny and the risk of getting stuck with a crap condo immense.

 

For me, condo values are 25-60% overvalued. I just don't understand the Thai government allowing developers to sell off the cream and then turn the place into an apartment block.

 

I'm sure these developers are leveraged to the hilt and there is cronyism at work in bank lending and finance.

[KittenKong]

1 hour ago, Number 6 said:

Thais are not very sophisticated financially and much of their purchases are idiotic.

That is something of an understatement.

 

1 hour ago, Number 6 said:

For me, condo values are 25-60% overvalued. I just don't understand the Thai government allowing developers to sell off the cream and then turn the place into an apartment block.

Few Thais can see further than the end of their nose, and any source of (apparently) easy money is usually considered to be a Good Thing here. The future does not seem to enter into the calculation at all.