It is the customer's wish to buy a good second-hand house safely at a low price. The Consumer Association reminds that before entrusting a real estate agency to find a house, home buyers should make necessary on-site inspections of the entrusted real estate agency’s office premises and review valid documents such as business licenses to see if there are any major issues such as business standardization and legality. question. When choosing a house, you must pay attention to precautions, truly choose an honest agent, and see through the traps of black agents.

So, what are the risks you may encounter when buying a house through an intermediary?

1. Spreading false housing listings

Unscrupulous intermediaries publish some false housing listings with good conditions and great prices in newspapers and on the Internet to lure home buyers into taking the bait. When a house buyer expresses his intention to buy a house, other houses will be recommended to him on the grounds that the current tenant will not allow him to view the house or the current owner does not want to sell the house. The purpose of tempting advertisements is to trap you first, so be sure to target the advertisement itself. If you can’t see the house or it’s not the house, don’t believe it.

2. Unauthorized misappropriation of house funds for investment

Many unscrupulous intermediary companies make full use of the convenience of having house purchase and sale funds in their own custody, and use large sums of money to make short-term investments in stocks, futures, and funds. Investments are even deposited in banks to earn interest, in order to make the money in these accounts flow and earn large amounts of gray income. In fact, the operating model of bank supervision of transaction funds has been launched for a long time, and the charging standard is between three thousandths and five thousandths of the supervision amount. However, most consumers give up on bank fund supervision because they are unwilling to pay supervision fees. Industry insiders remind that it is the safest way to have banks fully responsible for the supervision of large transaction funds. Although some supervision fees have to be paid, the safety factor is much higher.

3. Late delivery or payment upon delivery

Determine the delivery time

If a purchase and sale intention is reached, the delivery time should be clearly stipulated in the contract. In the past, during the process of buying and selling houses, disputes often occurred because the delivery time was not specified in the contract. For example, when the agreed time came, the seller was unable to deliver the house to the buyer due to leasing or other reasons, and the buyer failed to specify the delivery time in the contract. If relevant explanations are provided, the buyer will only suffer a "dumb loss". Therefore, when signing the contract, it is necessary to indicate when and how the seller will deliver the house to the buyer, what kind of compensation the buyer will receive if the house cannot be delivered on time, whether the house is still leased, etc. Under normal circumstances, at the time of agreement, the buyer can use about 10% of the total price of the house as a condition to constrain the seller to hand over the house.

4. Hidden secrets of free commissions or low commissions

The slogans of “commission-free for buying a house” and “half-price commission” are often promotional methods used by intermediary companies to attract customers. Hidden secrets, hidden behind such a pretense is often the practice of unscrupulous intermediaries taking advantage of the price difference. The source of intermediary profits should all come from commissions. Relevant regulations also clearly require that intermediary companies are never allowed to eat the price difference, and buyers and sellers must meet during transactions. Industry insiders remind that the service philosophy of brokerage companies, "meeting supply and demand, transparent transactions, signing three-party contracts, and not eating the price difference," cannot just stay in words and paper, but should be a strategy that is consistently and firmly implemented.

5. Hidden overbearing clauses in contracts

Many unscrupulous intermediaries deliberately set up unreasonable clauses in hidden places when signing agency or sales contracts with owners, otherwise they only stipulate that the owners should The responsibilities that intermediary companies should bear are blurred or even "avoided". Currently, the Municipal Construction Committee is about to issue a sample contract for second-hand housing sales and brokerage, which will avoid the emergence of unreasonable contracts to the greatest extent and protect the interests of consumers. The introduction of standardized contracts will eliminate hidden clauses in second-hand housing sales contracts that are unfavorable to consumers. I am afraid it will no longer be so easy for black agents to make fuss about contracts.

6. Misappropriating maintenance funds

Many consumers ignore maintenance funds when buying second-hand houses. Intermediaries often use this "gap" to eat into maintenance funds. Such situations often occur as follows: It happens in this way: the intermediary tells the seller that there is not much maintenance fund left for the second-hand house, and usually it is given to the buyer. When dealing with the buyer, the intermediary says that the seller did not "give" the maintenance fund to you, and the buyer has to handle the repairs again. Fund, so that the maintenance fund goes into the pocket of the intermediary. The buyer and seller need to understand each other in person. If the maintenance fund is to be donated to the buyer, both parties need to agree in the "Other Agreements" in the "House Purchase Conditions Agreement" clause. Under normal circumstances, when the house is handed over, the buyer and the seller need to go to the corresponding property management company together to make the fund delivery and change the account name according to the account balance of the maintenance fund.

(The above answer was published on 2015-10-15, please refer to the actual relevant current home purchase policies)

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