Hi I am a first time house buyer. I would like to know how to negotiate a subsale property price? What were your experiences?

I found a few suitable houses which I am interested in. So I started with research on the prices of houses being sold in the neighborhood by searching through property sites like iproperty, propwall, property guru etc.

So I started to engage some agents with their ads on the website. I met two agents already when I asked for viewing they straight ask me what is my budget. I definitely can afford the property listed price but I can't reveal that because I will lose my bargaining power.

One agent I met before I can view the house the way he talk is if you want to view then you have to buy already because the owner won't reduce price. This is the first time I engaged this agent never met before.

Am I being played around by the agents?
Property cost more than 1Mil

This post has been edited by MEngineer: Sep 1 2016, 09:05 PM

It is better you try to find out from the neighbour regarding the market price of the property. Do not listen to agent blindly but make your own research first especially the surrounding area and the previous purchase price by the owner. From there, you can know whether the current property is over price or value for money.

Print a lot of leaflets, bride the guard, drop leaflet in mailbox, direct nego w owner, save ur agent fee. That is what I would do. But I normally preferred buy new.

what a stupid agent



dont worry, there are many more good agents that will entertain your needs..if u want i can intro you this one malay agent..good and honest

yeah agreed with malay agent. not trying to be racist here. but is true.
you can follow a few REN on their FB. all malay. they share their experience and stuff. but then again some of their mindset is already set that they want to help malay only.

Since you are first-time buyer, why not start with affordables home scheme instead of subsale..

Not trying to show off but I can afford the property I am interested in just agents are not nice to deal with. Affordable home scheme not many choices that was my liking.

telling them your budget doesn't mean that's your offer price to buy, right? Maybe they just want to know your ballpark figure instead of waste each other time. If they say that's the price, cannot nego further then go look for another unit.

Sometimes got a few agents dealing with the same property, try asking a few.

This post has been edited by idoblu: Sep 2 2016, 04:41 PM

How I see it is if I tell my budget then it can be used against my advantage when negotiating. Interesting though why property agents think that there are many people go view houses for the fun of it. It also waste my time if I am not interested to buy right.

Yeah agree I found other agents for the same property. Not end of the world but eye opener to me in property negotiation.

You be surprised how many people actually go see house just for fun or beyond their budget. Now I'm not saying you are and I'm not an agent but I tried selling my own house before, that's how I know.

There is also a reason why some can't reduce their price. For my case, I wanted 1.2m, so I advertised slightly higher than that. I can't advertise 1.3m cause nobody would even look and I can't advertise at 1.2m cause that's my bottom. Anything over a million is not easy to sell. There's not much room for negotiation.

If they ask for your budget, just say a number below their asking price. But don't say few hundred thousand below asking la.

Is it possible if agents hike up the price without owners knowledge? If that happens it will give a false impression that the buyer just come see see. So how did your negotiation process? Did you finally find a buyer who viewed and straight away agree with your price?

dont fully trust agent

do your homework

study the surrounding and ask valuers for estimated values for the place

best way to knock price is only if the house have defect or the owner is desperate to let go of the property.

other than that, most probably very hard to nego the price.

Of course! Every agent on earth will want to hike up the price except for my stupid agent. She put lower than what I wanted.
Some small taman/project they can even pakat to maintain a certain price.

Eventually mine sold by another agent.

What kind of house you looking at? How many storey

i bought one property recently, have been viewing for the past 6 months
all the agents i met is just like what u said, non helpful and not good all

first, if u told them your budget they will only sell at your max budget, every unit you see will be at that price range
second, they are too lazy and very desperate for booking deposit after viewed only 1-3 units
third, they will never give you new option while insisting that the unit they recommended is the best available
last, they will bait, claiming that there are potential buyers if you still considering and soon they will give up after few try

i found a direct owner advertisement on facebook, almost 50K different from agent lowest price/bad condition unit for 500K-ish property
furthermore what i got is in good condition, auspicious door number, good facing and etc
owner also complaint that agent mark up his unit too much, while he need money for his new house renovation

not neccessarily. just offer your price and can ask the agent to offer it to owner.

unless the owner already give full decision to the agent.

Anyhow, i still suggest u check the current market price for the area just so that wont kena goreng by the agents.

some responsible agent will nego around the market value and not by owner asking price alone

If the house prices are okay, then you may need to know your baseline too...
Make a few Bank valuation first...please tend to make 10% lower on the offer price...and ask what is the max value for the house, from Banker...

Very simple. Go to the bank and tell them the exact property address, size of unit, furnished/non furnished....get their valuation. Get from 2 banks.

Then, contact agents, go for viewings ho humm ho very nice very nice, and then give your budget, max I will pay = Bank valuation - (2-3% of selling price).

Because 2-3% is agent commission, so you're now tapping into buyers selling price. Agents commissions are ridiculous, some of them asking 3% now, don't know if its the standard, but still find it ridiculous.

You want a motivated seller. So the prices listed on the website are just sellers 'fishing', you can be sure for a 1mill property, can slash another 30-40k at least. But always use bank valuation as benchmark. And tell the agent, this is the bank valuation for this price, for this unit - you've done your homework.

Next, tell them - this is my price. Call me if owner agrees and I'll give you the cheque the next day. If they call back and match it - you got a good deal.

To the agents who say you must buy if you view, yadayadaya, tell them to stuff it. Many many agents out there, this is the buyers market.

Sound like a good strategy. Thanks

I just tried your strategy. I gave an agent my price range for example purposes max 1.8M. The agent replied got one house listed RM2mil can nego. So I gave it more thought nego means RM2mil max can become RM1.8M sounds like it is just tailored to my budget. This was exactly what I wanted to avoid no room to nego. Smack on my max budget. Then agent complain if I nego below 1.8M.

I am looking at new landed property, two story corner or end lot.

Oh I thought you are looking at a particular place, like you already set your target on a particular project.