When Dee Bentley received a letter from a woman offering to buy her house in Mount Gambier without going through a real estate agent, it rang alarm bells.
Key points:
- Mount Gambier residents have received a letter offering to buy their houses privately
- The author says she is writing because of the lack of houses on the market despite many on offer for sale
- The Real Estate Institute says people taking up the offer could miss out on the best price for their property
“I just didn’t feel comfortable with sort of dealing with that person, ringing that person and giving them details of the house or inviting them over to the house,:” Ms Bentley said.
The photocopy of a handwritten letter said that the woman and her husband were looking to buy a house in Mount Gambier and were writing “due to the lack of properties on the market”.
Ms Bentley said this was “odd” since there were “heaps of houses” for sale in the city in South Australia’s south-east.
About 130 houses are for sale on real estate websites in Mount Gambier, plus another 100 in the surrounding areas.
“There’s no shortage of houses in Mount Gambier, so I don’t see why they wouldn’t go through a real estate agent unless they were trying to buy your house for less than you were normally selling it for,” Ms Bentley said.
The letter says: “We can make an offer quickly… you don’t have to worry about fixing things up… We are happy to buy ‘as is’…. There will be no pressure and you are under no obligation to sell to us.”
It includes a phone number and email address.
No-one answered the number despite multiple calls from the ABC.
Several other houses on Ms Bentley’s street also received the same letter.
Benefits of going through an agent
Real Estate Institute of South Australia chief executive Andrea Heading did not label the letter a scam but said people who took up the offer would miss exploring the market to get the best price for their property.
She said real estate agents also knew how to deal with forms, fees and other legal obligations.
“The agent’s role in selling a property on behalf of a vendor is not just presenting the property and marketing and the campaign behind it, but there is some rigour behind the paperwork that needs to be prepared for a property tied up in a sale,” Ms Heading said.
She said if people were keen on a private sale, they should still seek legal advice to deal with the transaction.
The Australia Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) was not aware of a scam of people offering to buy a house without an agent.
It says some scammers will say you are entitled to a large sum of money but then have to pay a fee to access it.
“These fees may even start out as quite small amounts,” the ACCC’s Scamwatch website says.
“If paid, the scammer may make up new fees that require payment before you can receive your reward. They will keep asking for more money as long as you are willing to part with it.
“You will never be sent the money that was promised.”
Most scams around real estate appear to be in the rental market, which has been tight across Australia.