Real estate heats up, sellers 'turn around', flip deals, making brokers bitter

Mr. Le Minh Quoc, a professional real estate broker in Hoang Mai district ( Hanoi ) indignantly recounted his story after struggling to lead many customers to view and buy a house in an alley on Minh Khai street (Hai Ba Trung district) but then the owner suddenly reneged on the sale.

According to Mr. Quoc, in early February, the homeowner asked his office to advertise a 55m2, 5-story house for sale for 8.5 billion VND.

"I judged this house to be in a good location, with no feng shui errors, and at a reasonable price, so I chose it to advise some customers with real housing needs," said Mr. Quoc.

In nearly a month, among more than a dozen visitors, a couple in Nam Dinh agreed to pay 8.2 billion VND to buy a house for their son who is studying in Hanoi. This is the highest price among the customers and also close to the price offered by the homeowner. The buyer agreed to deposit 500 million VND and will complete the payment and paperwork within 20 days.

However, when everything was about to be finalized, the homeowner suddenly announced that he would not accept the deposit because "he wanted to wait longer due to the high price of real estate".

“The homeowner announced that to sell this house immediately, the price must be 9.2 billion VND, an increase of 1 billion VND compared to the original price. When the homeowner gave that price, not only the buyer was shocked, but even brokers like us were also indignant.

"Maybe because there were a lot of customers coming to see the house and the price was fixed quickly, the owner regretted it. They also heard that the market was gradually improving, so they wanted to push the price up. The owner suddenly changed the deal, causing me to constantly apologize to the customers, and I was even suspected of colluding with the owner," said Mr. Quoc.

Also in a similar situation, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Huy ( Ha Nam ) said that since the beginning of March 2022, the owner of a 108m2 plot of land in the area of Viet Duc 2 Hospital (Phu Ly city) asked a broker to sell it.

“The plot of land faces south, has a very nice 8m wide frontage, the expected price is 25 million VND/m2 but after more than 2 years of posting and advertising on social media platforms... no one asked to buy it,” said Mr. Huy.

In early March 2024, the land market showed more positive signs, some people asked to buy, Mr. Huy called the landowner many times and agreed to close the price at 22 million VND/m2.

“The customer agreed on the price, the owner agreed to sell, my office proactively hired a 7-seat car to take the customer from Phu Ly to Hanoi to meet the landowner to make a deposit. When the two sides met, the landowner suddenly changed his tone and demanded an additional 3 million VND/m2. I wasted half a day taking the customer, and the deal was broken. I was also scolded by the customer and had to pay nearly a million VND out of my own pocket for the car trip,” said Mr. Huy.

Mr. Tran Thanh Hai, owner of a brokerage office in Thanh Tri (Hanoi), said with dismay that cases of house and land owners turning around and not selling their properties are not uncommon recently, especially since the beginning of February when the real estate market warmed up and bank interest rates dropped sharply, so many investors turned to real estate.

Mr. Hai himself was once in this situation. At the end of December 2023, the brokerage office received information that the customer urgently needed to sell the adjacent house, the market price in 2022 was about 15 billion VND. Because the homeowner needed money to pay the bank, he wanted to cut the loss to 12 billion VND.

“Although the price of 12 billion VND is not easy to find a buyer, it is not too difficult to sell. After 5 times of bringing customers to see and agree on the price, when it came to the stage of receiving money and completing the paperwork, the owner suddenly announced that he would not sell. They said they had arranged the money to pay off the debt, so they wanted to wait for the market to become active again and the price to increase before selling. All my efforts in finding customers were wasted,” Mr. Hai said bitterly.

According to experts, the real estate market is showing positive signs, prices are no longer cutting too deeply. Therefore, the phenomenon of landowners "turning around" to wait for price increases at this time is not rare.

Real estate is bustling again, many brokers are bitterly cheated out of deals. (Illustration photo)

“When the market shows signs of recovery, investors also wait to sell at a price close to the market price, avoiding deep losses. Therefore, many homeowners do not sell at the previous price to sell at a better price. Or do not sell anymore because they have managed to manage the cash flow,” explained Mr. Nguyen Van Dinh, Chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Brokerage Association.

According to lawyer Nguyen Doan Hong, Director of Danang International Law Firm, this is a common situation that occurs in real estate transactions.

Legally, there is no way to handle this case because the transaction does not have any documents or commitments. In case the parties have received money and signed a deposit contract, they can handle administrative proceedings and request compensation for the commission percentage according to the contract agreement. However, if they talk to each other orally, there is no sanction to handle.

“A land product, the landowner can assign to many brokers, real estate transaction offices for distribution. Therefore, before the transaction, the real estate offices or brokers should sign an exclusive sale contract with a price range, a certain time of purchase and sale. When there is a buyer, the price, the time in the contract, even if the landowner does not sell, there is still enough basis to file a lawsuit,” lawyer Hong advised.

PHAM DUY

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