When dealing with inexperienced, nervous and ultra-cautious buyers the estate agents will, time-and-again, come across cases of buyer’s remorse.

“A day or two after signing or a day or two after moving in,” says Lanice Steward of Anne Porter Knight Frank, “the buyer may begin to question their own wisdom and to doubt themselves.

“Buying a property is an emotional experience which often results n the purchaser having a large dose of “buyer’s remorse”. This is quite common.

“However, a professional agent will comfort the purchaser and give him back the joy he initially experienced on gaining ownership.”

“Fortunately, all the experience shows that the regret is almost invariably short lived - in the case of property within a week or two of moving in the buyer begins to realise that he has in fact done something rather clever and a new mood takes over.”

What particularly acerbates these negative reactions in the residential property sector, said Steward, is the sorry state in which some sellers feel entitled to leave their homes.

“Moving into a bare home can be a daunting experience on its own,” said Steward. “The rooms look bare and ugly and if the light fittings have been taken they can be positively prison-like. If the rooms are not spotlessly clean, if rubble and debris have been left in the garden, if the plants have been allowed to die and the swimming pool to go black the buyer may well feel cheated.”

A good agent, she said, will do all in his or her power to prevent the house being left in an unsightly condition - but often by the time the buyer moves the agent and seller will have lost contact.

“There have,” said Steward, “occasionally been attempts to make the agent pay for a clean up. This is obviously out of the question - it is definitely not our responsibility - but a good agent can occasionally extract a clean up contribution from a seller, particularly if his service to that seller has been good.”

Article by: www.anneporter.co.za