Exposing the trick of using buyers as 'bait' to push up house prices

For the past few months, Mr. Nguyen Quang Minh (Hung Yen) and his wife have been struggling to find a house or land to buy in Hanoi . With 4 billion VND, Mr. Minh and his wife only decided to buy in areas with cheap land prices such as Hoang Mai district and Thanh Tri district. But even though they have viewed dozens of houses, Mr. Minh and his wife still have not been able to decide on any.

The reason is not because he and his wife are picky, but every time they like an apartment and when it comes to finalizing the price, the broker tells them that someone has already paid a deposit.

" There is a 30m2, 5-storey house, the alley is about 2.5m wide, the owner is selling it for 4.1 billion VND, my wife and I have offered 3.8 billion VND but have not yet closed the deal, then the next day the broker informed us that there was a deposit and the closing price was only 50 million VND higher than my wife and I. The broker said if I still like this house, I have to buy it back for 4 billion VND ", Mr. Minh said.

According to Mr. Minh, he and his wife failed to buy 2 houses with similar forms. The details in the negotiation process were the same: After viewing the house, the customer was satisfied and offered a price, at the "final" stage, the difference between the two parties was only about 100 million VND or at the stage of agreeing which party would pay the cost, the homeowner suddenly "turned around".

Mr. Minh suspected that the broker and the homeowner were using him and his wife to push up the price of the house.

" I think the homeowner doesn't really want to sell, so when they see that the buyer is paying close to the asking price, they increase it so that if the buyer is willing to pay more. Their real purpose is to get more customers to come see, negotiate, and bargain to create the feeling that many people are interested, in order to push up the price of the house ," said Mr. Minh.

Using one customer to increase the selling price of the house to another is a trick that many brokers and homeowners are starting to implement. (Illustration photo)

Ms. Le Thi My Linh (Hoai Duc, Hanoi) also said that in early April this year, she had agreed to close a house in Hoai Duc for 5.3 billion VND. But when she met the homeowner to make a deposit, the homeowner suddenly asked her to pay and transfer the ownership within 1 week. If she did not agree, she would not accept the sale.

" The amount of 5.3 billion VND is quite large, the broker also knew that my husband and I had to borrow money from the bank to buy, so when the homeowner said that, we had to ignore it. I think the homeowner wanted to push up the price, so he intentionally made it difficult for the buyer, " said Ms. Linh.

According to Ms. Linh, half a month later, she and her husband went to the house to buy it back, but the house had been sold. The new owner said he bought it for 5.4 billion VND.

" The new homeowner also told us that when they offered 5.25 billion VND, the homeowner showed us a text message that someone had offered 5.3 billion VND, and if they didn't pay more, they would sell it to another customer. Because they couldn't find a house for many months, the new homeowner and his wife had to accept paying 5.4 billion VND for the house. It was clear that they used my husband and I's price to push up the house price ," Ms. Linh said indignantly.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Tan, a long-time real estate broker in Hanoi, said that using one customer to increase the selling price for another is not uncommon when selling a house.

Many project investors even take advantage of the shortage of supply in the market to create a virtual fever. Accordingly, many projects, although officially opened for sale only a few days ago, have a dense number of "owned" apartments in the investor's product list. In particular, there are projects that have just opened for sale and up to 80% of the apartments have owners.

In fact, only insiders know the number of apartments sold, while customers will be affected by the "scarcity of goods" mentality and quickly choose and pay.

" Creating a virtual "hotness" for the project, making customers feel like "if you don't buy now, you'll miss out" and then increasing the price significantly compared to the starting price to make a profit is a common price inflation tactic, not new at all, but still fools many "faint-hearted" customers who don't have much knowledge about the market ," Ms. Tan shared.

Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Real Estate Brokers (VARS), said that although the real estate market has had positive changes, customers still need to be extremely cautious with products with virtual price fever.

According to Mr. Dinh, it is not uncommon for brokers to advertise that the real estate market has "warmed up" in the past, and it often happens to create virtual waves. There are even groups of brokers, homeowners, and investors who do not hesitate to join hands to buy and sell, to create virtual transactions, "left hand" selling to "right hand".

Home buyers and investors therefore need to be alert in advance to avoid falling into the situation of losing more money unnecessarily.

Chau Anh

Source