If you think that Due Diligence (DD) only starts once you've actually decided to buy a particular villa and it's only something for your lawyer or notary to deal with, then think again because you could save yourself a lot of trouble.

I recommend you get in DD mode right from the beginning, right after you type ‘Bali real estate’ or ‘Bali property for sale’ in a Google search and start browsing all those wonderful real estate websites.

Trusting that Google knows what’s good for you doesn’t really work in a property search, simply because Google doesn't have a clue about what a good listing is. It may propel a website to the top of its search results only because that site seems to have more listings than others, for example.

So, if you can’t fully trust Google's search results what should you do?

It's not such an easy answer to be honest, especially if you live on the other side of the planet, so here are some tips that might help you:

• Find out whether an agency is licensed and how long it's been operating for. If an agency has been trading for 10 years it must be doing something right.
• Is the agency a member of the real estate association or not? Does it have other affiliations in the industry that could vouch for quality services?
• See what else you can find about the agency or ask someone who actually bought in Bali about his or her experiences. 

Be aware that some agencies post a lot of hot air on their sites just to gain more weight and get a better ranking with Google, but they don't actually have much of a clue about many of their listings or only know half the truth about the rest.

They may not even know the seller of the property (the vendor) and they may not really have a sales mandate either. Too bad, if you fall in love with one of those properties because you could find out it’s actually not for sale or never was to begin with or it's for sale at a different price or …  or …

That’s step number one in your personal Due Diligence process.

Once you've decided which websites you like you're going to start a conversation with an agent, or several agents on those sites, and again, you'll probably like one more than the other.

There are many reasons for this. It could be because of how quickly an agent replies to you or how resourceful he seems to be or how long he actually lived in Bali or because he's Swiss and you trust in Swiss quality (that first Omega on your wrist you got as a kid is still ticking fine) or because she's French and you trust French taste and prefer croissants to Pumpernickel. 

That’s your second step in undertaking due diligence:

Find an agent that responds well and knows his or her stuff and whom you feel you could trust to watch over your kids.

It's also not a bad idea to Google the agent and see what pops up. Social Media profiles and posts can tell you a lot about a person and can shed insights into common or shared values. Do you really want to trust and invest through someone who posts and shares things that don't resonate with you?

In the next installment we're going to Bali to start inspecting properties that you've shortlisted. I'll bet you won't buy the property that’s on top of your shortlist.

I'll explain why next time.

Similar to this:

Making your Villa pay

Personal insights into the property market in Bali in 2017

Can I still do a rental flip?