Why you need an expert on board?

Are you an Expat looking to buy a home in The Netherlands? Maybe the relocation deal with the company you're working for has come to end? Or have you been living in The Netherlands for a while and you visualise all that rent money in someone else's bank account? Do you want to take advantage of ridiculously low interest rates and favourable tax benefits and buy somewhere?

Having an offer accepted seems a strange place to start when thinking about the process of buying a property but it is important to understand this booming housing market and what is important to the seller in order for you to succeed.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone selling an apartment in Amsterdam. You have had 60 viewings (even in these Covid times) and your selling makelaar has set a date and time for when the offers must be received by. It's now deadline day and you're chatting to your makelaar about the 25 offers received. He or she will already have thrown 15 away. It's down to the best 10 and as the seller, you can cherry pick the offer that suits you the best. You are looking for:

  • A good price
  • Certainty the deal will go through
  • A move out date that suits you
  • A buyer to take the things you no longer want

A good makelaar can advise on the first point and as a buyer, you can be flexible with the third and fourth but the CERTAINTY is something that is impossible to convey unless the buyer is well represented.

It isn't a closed shop of makelaars scratching each others backs, making as much money as possible. Uninformed people will call makelaars the mafia, corrupt and unethical but that is simply not the case. There is a code of conduct and we operate within this.

The fact is that a selling makelaar will prefer an offer from someone like me rather than a private individual because they know I have checked out the buyer. I will never make an offer on behalf of a client unless I know they can go through with the deal. This means good communication with their mortgage broker, explaining all the costs involved and most importantly building a relationship of trust. They also know I have read the 42 documents sent to me, they know I know what needs to be done next and in which order and no matter if you think you can do all these things yourself without a makelaar, the selling makelaar doesn't know that and you're unlikely to be put forward as one of the contenders. That certainty to the buyer can be worth €20.000 (I recently had an offer accepted for an apartment for a price of €652.000 with no financing conditions, being very flexible with the delivery date and moveables offering the seller certainty versus a private offer of €670.000 which didn't mention anything else)

A lot of people come to me asking the question, "Do you get to see places before they come up on Funda?" The short answer is no and if a makelaar says they always do then they are basically lying. When a property is listed on Funda, it will go live at midnight. During this time, yes it is possible for NVM mambers to see the listing before midnight but come on, what advantage does that give anyone? Again, in the shoes of the seller, are you going to only let one person view it and accept their offer immediately or will you list it and open it up to the world to see and potentially get 25 offers? Hmmmmm, I know which one I would do. Saying that, makelaars do talk to each other and we may know of places coming up for sale without them being listed yet. Is that a huge advantage? No, it just means you may have more options to choose a viewing time. In Covid times, the number of viewings is limited and yes a selling makelaar may decide to give priority to those who have a buying makelaar. Without one, you may have to join a waiting list, that's just the way it is, I don't make the rules.

The crazy thing is that I haven't even mentioned yet what I actually do so nip over to the next tab for that.

Contact

N:Kate Holdsworth
P:+31 64 661 3315
E:info@makelaarkate.nl