Buying in Brussels without a property hunter: a risky bet?

When it comes to selling a property, the vast majority of owners rely on the services of a real estate agent. But when you're on the other side of the transaction, why is the property hunter just as indispensable to the buyer as the estate agent is to the seller? Here's a quick look at the risks of buying alone.

In Belgium, real estate agents and property hunters are both regulated by the Institut Professionnel des Agents Immobiliers (IPI), the body that ensures that real estate professionals are familiar with the applicable regulations and comply with the rules of professional conduct. And yet, despite the widespread use of estate agents, the profession of property hunter is still little known in Belgium, where it is often mistakenly considered to be the preserve of the big bucks. Far from this image, a property hunter can help you avoid mistakes that can prove costly.

Assistance

The biggest risk in buying a property is making a mistake! The money involved is huge, and the slightest mistake can be very costly. Your property hunter will be with you from the very start, helping you to define your project and the budget you really have available to carry it out. During visits, he will be there to review the situation with you, identify the strengths and weaknesses of the property visited and help you make a decision in complete confidence. Your hunter is the only professional who will advise you in complete independence: unlike a real estate agent, your hunter has no interest in you buying one property rather than another.

Reactivity and pro-activity

Finding the flat or house of your dreams is one thing. Buying it is even better! And the Brussels property market is very dynamic. To give yourself the best chance of success, you need to be extremely reactive, even pro-active, by visiting properties even before they are put up for sale on the platforms. This takes time and requires a large network. A property hunter is a professional who can save you precious time by selecting properties that match your criteria and organising visits for you, thereby eliminating the risk of seeing a property sold before you've even had a chance to visit it.

Expertise

When buying a property, it's important to be aware of the applicable regulations, and in particular to ensure that the property does not infringe any planning regulations (see the Immoweb article on this subject: https://blog.immoweb.be/fr/vendre/infraction-urbanistique-lors-de-la-vente/). It's also important to consider a potential works budget and to anticipate the costs involved in buying a property. If you make the slightest mistake, you run the risk of committing yourself to buying a flat or house without having a true picture of the overall budget for your ambitions. On all these points, the property hunter is there to advise and guide you.

Negotiating power

Whether it's your first time or not, and even when it's an investment, buying property is still the most important purchase you'll ever make. The sums involved are substantial, and negotiation can make all the difference. But to do that, you need to know the property market inside out. From one street to the next, from one year to the next, the price of the same property changes. The property hunter will give you a correct estimate of the price and put in place a negotiation strategy to give you every chance of buying at the right price.

While it's true that calling on the services of a property hunter represents an additional cost compared with buying a property on your own, this real estate professional will enable you to significantly mitigate the risks associated with a major purchase. Their knowledge of the trade and the market can even save you a lot of money. Calling on a property hunter means becoming a homeowner with complete peace of mind!