Don’t get Yourself Caught up by These Common Frauds when Buying Property in Pakistan
The real estate industry of Pakistan has been tremendously growing over the years but then due to some economic crisis this industry was seen to fall into crisis, and now with this crisis rate of frauds and scams might increase so we being responsible wanted you to know about them.
Below is the list of methods to prevent yourself from real estate scams and scammers. It’s better to learn before the mistake or else most of us will end up learning from our mistakes.
- Don’t Rely on Agents Only
Before you buy any sort of property including land, house, apartment, or anything does your research through various online portals such as zameen.com, OLX, or any other.
- Look for the market value of the property
It’s important that you check the market value of the property you wish to buy. Suppose you want a land of 200 Sq. Yards, in a specific area. You should call different real estate agencies in or nearby that area and ask them for the market price of 200 sq. Yard’s property.
They will certainly give you a rough estimate of two prices which will be the starting and ending price. Your desired property price varies in between those prices depending upon the type of buyer you are. This way you will know where the market lies in that area.
- Don’t rely on only one Agent
When buying some property, you should never rely on only one agent. It’s that simple whenever you go shopping for clothes for yourself you first window shop through different outlets, look into your budget, and then buy the things that are in your budget.
This way when you are in touch with different agents, they will show you different places nearly to your budget sometimes less and sometimes a little bit more. This way you will have more choices and less chance of getting tricked with a high price.
- Meet the owner Face-to-face
If you have now shortlisted the properties that may be of your interest. Ask your agent to set a meeting with the owner. Many times, the owner would make excuses of owners not being around in the city or country. Just don’t buy those excuses and walk away from that deal.
If so, the agent arranges your meeting. Discuss with him in detail about the property also cross-check the allotment/transfer papers with the CNIC of the owner person.
- Don’t pay all at once. Give token money first to finalize the deal.
Once you are done with the negotiations and you are satisfied with the deal it’s time to give the owner token money. Token money is an amount between 50,000pkr – 100,000pkr which is to bound the buyer and seller to the deal. Nobody changes their mind afterwards.
Couple of things to take care about here:
- Take a copy of the allotment/transfer letter from the owner.
- Take token receipt from the owner which must include a complete address or file number of the property.
- The token receipt must mention that the property doesn’t have any litigations or due payment.
Remember, this token money is included in the total price of the property.
- Ask your agent to verify Allotment or Transfer Letter
Now is the time to verify the allotment/transfer papers you got from the owner. Get used to your agent now and go with him to the society’s office and double-check and verify those papers with them in case of anything suspicious or false.
- Pay via Bank pay orders
It’s time you pay for the property. Avoid doing it in cash. It will be much less of a hassle it’s secure to pay via pay order or bank transfer. Helps with the proof.
Pay to your agent as most of them have a 1% fee of the total property. Following these steps will help you preventing scams and cons. For anything more, you need to know about it you can visit us at our office at Five Star Marketing Network.