Author Topic: Property Misdescription and Turkey  (Read 3931 times)

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Offline ytokgoz

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Property Misdescription and Turkey
« on: August 09, 2012, 21:56:32 PM »
Being an estate agent in Turkey for so many years and being an ea also in Uk, I have more change to compare the differences in both countries. The first test I had to take was about property misdescription. That was tough and we have to be very carefull about what we say, what we write , even how we take the photo of the property in UK.
For example we can not write "This is a lovely 3 bedroom property 5 minutes walk to all amenities you need. " is wrong.! and many others like that. also about the price. even more than one agents is marketing the same property they have to be the same.

so now you may ask why am ı writing this? well , as you may know ı have been designing the first property portal of Turkey in English, which is www.propertyandturkey.com and ı was searching for estate agents in turkey so i could send them an email and let them know about this website etc. but i was also looking at their properties. wowwww..i even saw properties from 2001 still look available and the price is about 15.000K in Ovacik off plan. . I would buy couple of them. They would be sued big time if they were in Uk but unfortunately we stil ldont have a law about this things in Turkey. at least for now.
I believe all those villas for sale 15.000 are for show purposes and used as a bait to get the attention of potential client and his details.
so here is a little article about property and turkey and a little advertisement of my website.  :)
so what do you think? is it because the estate agent forgot to take that property off the website?or forgot to put another 0 at the end of the price?

Offline Scunner

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Re: Property Misdescription and Turkey
« Reply #1 on: August 09, 2012, 23:07:58 PM »
Yes I agree - there are properties being advertised "off plan" on the internet right now, with no photos, just artist 3D impressions - but they were finished in 2004/2005 and people have owned them for years. As you say, the 2003/2004 prices are incredibly attractive even compared to the relatively slow market of today. Same with resales, so many of them were sold years ago and not removed from websites - when people want to view they aren't told that it is sold, they are told "bad area" or "you won't like it" - to keep the myth alive. They are, as you suggest, the bait to get the enquiry.

On the other side of the coin, there is also a responsibility on the buyer - caveat emptor in the UK - which means that it is the responsibility of the purchaser to satisfy themselves that they understand what they are buying. As I mentioned in another recent topic, no agent goes round to take photographs of a new property for their website that are anything less than stunning. Me included. I will not be taking photographs of metal bars sticking out of the lawn for no obvious reason, areas of grass scorched to death by the Turkish sun, or close ups of balcony wood that really could do with another coat of woodstain  :)

Offline Robw

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Re: Property Misdescription and Turkey
« Reply #2 on: August 09, 2012, 23:11:35 PM »
Interesting, i saw an ad in a local UK paper recently showing a detached Villa in the Fethiye area with its own pool etc for about 79K I thought from the pic it seemed unrealistic but i may be wrong. Would they be held accountable for false advertising here?

Offline Scunner

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Re: Property Misdescription and Turkey
« Reply #3 on: August 09, 2012, 23:18:25 PM »
It's a complicated one but I think probably not. Nearly all UK based advertising of property in Turkey is advertising the portfolio of others (in Turkey) and it would be very difficult to prove the UK company wasn't advertising in good faith. They can only work on what they have been given.

Offline Harmless

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Re: Property Misdescription and Turkey
« Reply #4 on: August 10, 2012, 08:44:58 AM »
I remember the property misdescriptions act when it came in, stunning panoramic views over the spires of Walthamstow was a phrase that had to go!  Ah, happy days.
Some agents leave the cheap older properties on their pages deliberately, but, I would imagine most have just given up, my web page is still running but, we are no longer trading, although, we may do so again in a year or so, hence keeping the web page. 

Offline mac2010

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Re: Property Misdescription and Turkey
« Reply #5 on: August 10, 2012, 09:08:07 AM »
The other problem here is that sellers does not inform the estate agent when it is sold or removed from the market. Trying to keep updated here is a difficult task.

Offline Harmless

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Re: Property Misdescription and Turkey
« Reply #6 on: August 10, 2012, 19:03:12 PM »
Yes that is true and they also do not always tell agents when they change their price either




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