Investing, Flipping and Reselling: Real Estate Investment Tips

Five Essential Ways a Buyer's Advocate Can Help You Buy Real Estate at Auction

A buyer's advocate can help you with a range of aspects related to buying a home or other real estate property, and these professionals can even help if you want to buy a home at auction. With their help, you can look forward to submitting a successful auction bid. In particular, here's a look at five of the ways they can help you:

1. Buyer's advocates can help you research the property before you bid.

When you buy a home using the traditional process, you typically spend some time looking at it, assessing its flaws and haggling with the buyer. All of the research about the state of the home happens during the negotiation process, and you never have to finalise your offer until you feel fully informed about the home.

When you opt to buy a home at auction, in contrast, you have to investigate the background of the home before you bid. Unfortunately, it's often hard or impossible to get inside of one of these homes prior to the auction, and for that reason, you need to be creative about the investigation process.

A buyer's advocate can help you amass the info you need. They can look into old records, talk to previous owners or leverage their connections to find out as much about the house as possible. That prevents you from going into the auction blind and making a bid that doesn't truly reflect the home's actual value.

2. Buyer's advocates have experience with auctions.

In addition to helping you prepare for an auction, a buyer's advocate can use his or her experience to help you at the auction itself. They can help you figure out which type of auction it is -- in most cases, auctions either have a reserve (where the seller needs to approve the winning bid) or they are simply set up to award the property to the winning bidder regardless of how high or low the bid is.

A buyer's advocate can also help guide you toward an appropriate bid, and if you have other things to attend to, they can even attend the auction for you and bid on your behalf.

3. Buyer's advocates aren't emotionally involved and can offer you objective guidance.

As they aren't emotionally involved (like you may be), buyer's advocates don't tend to overbid. They also appear calm and collected, two traits that can indirectly help you to win.

For example, if other bidders sense that you are overeager, they may subconsciously start to want the property more, and those feelings floating around can drive up the price. In contrast, if your advocate seems laidback, the other bidders will likely pick up on that vibe, and it can help curtail their bidding.

4. Buyer's advocates can make decisions quickly.

Thanks to their experience, buyer's advocates can make decisions quickly. They know when to increase the bid or when to stop, and they don't need a lot of time to make those decisions.

The ability to go in hard and fast without thought of regret, is considered to be one of the five most important traits in winning a real estate bid, whether you are buying real estate conventionally or at auction.

5. Buyer's advocates can help you organise the funds you need if you win the auction.

When you go to an auction, you need to have the funds ready in case you win. Every auction has a different set of requirements regarding how the winning bidder must submit his or her payments. In some cases, the bidder must have cash, but in other cases, the bidder simply needs to have proof of mortgage approval.

Your buyer's advocate can help you determine the financial expectations of each different auction, and they can help you arrange the necessary proof of your financial solvency. For example, you don't have to bring a bag full of cash to a cash-only auction. Instead, you need to be prepared to produce certified funds if you win.

For more ways that a buyer's advocate can help you buy a house at auction, contact one today at a company like Aus Property Professionals.


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