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82 Business View Australia - July 2015
original vision for the business was
born when I noticed that traditional
buyers of real estate were not
represented. There were a couple of
buyers’ agents around but I saw that
there was a niche in the market to
help buyers get a leg up and level the
playing field and really help them to
make more informed buying decisions.
“Traditionally there is a selling agent
to market the property, but when
the buyer comes along there is no
one on their side to find a property,
no one to help them to appraise it
and tell them what it is worth and
no one to help them to negotiate.
“Mosthomebuyersareprobablyselling
their properties every 10 to 15 years.
In that period of time the technology
changes in the way property is
marketed and the value of the property
also changes. So I felt that there was
an opportunity to help grow the buyers’
agent industry and I had a vision to
become the best in the business.
“It was interesting rolling out our
mission and vision many years ago. We
have actually achieved that mission and
vision over time. When we started there
was just myself and my wife but we now
have 12 members in our team, each
of whom handles a specialised area.”
Home-buyersandinvestorsrecognised
the value that Propertybuyer was
bringing to the table. The volume of
business grew rapidly and in the last
15 years the company has completed
over 2000 purchase transactions.
Propertybuyer rapidly diversified
into the luxury segment and started
helping buyers who were looking for
homes in the $10 to $30 million range.
It also started working for commercial
buyers who were looking for new
premises and commercial investors
who required high yielding assets.
In Rich Harvey’s experience, real
estate purchasers can get much better
results if they use a buyers’ agent. He
says, “Homebuyersmakeanemotional
purchase. Home buyers buy with their
heart and not with their head. So, a
home buyer will walk into a property,
fall in love with it, but not realise that
it may not be a suitable property
for them in two or three years’ time.
“The kids might have got too big for it
or it might be too far from the school or
too far from their place of work. They
need to future-proof their purchase.
But they rush in, fall in love and
make silly offers and pay whatever
it takes to get it. They are not really
considering the competition on
the property. These are a couple
of mistakes home-buyers make.
REAL ESTATE