How to select a real estate agent

[Joss]

Hi,

I am going to look to buy my first home this year, and I would like pointers from experience home buyers on what to look for in a real estate agent. Everyone always says "ask your friends for a recommendation", but I suspect that most people don't have any objective way to assess the quality of their real estate agent, so that's not very meaningful.

Thanks,

Joss

 

[Gollnick]

Look for someone who does this FULL TIME. This is a huge purchase. If you needed surgery, you wouldn't hire a hobbiest. Get a full-time professional real estate agent. Finally, get a BUYER'S AGENT. A Buyer's Agent is an agent who restricts himself to representing buyers.

Look for someone who's been in the business for a few years. There are three key thing an agent will do for you: help you find a house without trudging through every open house within a 100 mile radius, keep you out of legal trouble, connect you to the various other people you're gonna need to buy the house and get moved in. These things all require experience.

A good agent will not take you to a house that he (and I use male pronouns only because it is proper English usage to refer to a person of unknown gender by male pronouns) hasn't been in himself before. Once you decide on a house, your agent will research the situation for you. They'll look into such issues as zoning, restrictions, home owners associations, etc. They'll set you up with a good home inspector. They'll know a great carpet repair guy who can take care of that problem in the dining room, etc.

The guy we're talking about here is an experienced, full-time professional who specializes in helping buyers.

 

[phatch]

You want one who sells/buys a lot of houses every year. These are the ones who know the market and are actively involved in their profession as Gollnick stated. I lucked into one when I worked in a credit union with some real estate ties who has consistently been in the "million dollar club". With the house prices where they are now, that doesn't mean much, but it did back then.

Getting one who is actually a realtor (a professional organization, not just a generic title) is worth it I think.

One word of caution. In cases where your agent is also the agent for the seller, the responsibilities change a bit. I don't remember precisely which way it goes. Essentially the agent has greater responsibilities to one party for some reason that escapes me now. It's not particularly a problem, but it's something to keep in mind.

Take your time, don't let them rush you.

Phil

 

[Chiro75]

Spend $15 on "Idiot's Guide to Buying a Home" or something along those lines. Read it, understand it, apply it. I've bought and sold a couple houses and had to deal with realtors for my office and most of them usually have some sort of shenanigans they get into. Also, NEVER, EVER tell a realtor how much you're willing to spend. Sounds counterintuitive, but a study was done in which one group told the realtor the max they were willing to spend and another group simply told the realtor the features of the home they were interested in. After the study concluded (don't know the actual stats) they found that people who told what the upper limit of their spending was, usually spent more than that amount, while the people who never put a figure in front of the realtor ended up with more features and better homes than they thought they could afford for LESS!

We bought our first house 5 years ago and got screwed every which way to Sunday by the world's shadiest realtor's. We smartened up and read the book and applied what we knew, and it frustrated the heck out of our realtor, but when he said "How much are you willing to spend" we responded with "We'd rather not say. We're interested in features, not price, and here is our list of features." They tried several times in several different ways offhandedly to get us to budge, and we never did. Guess what? House in the Historic District, ten minutes walk from downtown, perfect location, great place, better than we thought we could get for surprisingly little. So, it works. Good luck!!!

 

[Joss]

Thanks guys. Keep'em coming, this is very useful.

I've been reading books, but most are written by realtors, so they're a bit biased.

BTW, the problem w/ agents that represent both the buyer and the seller is the same thing as what happens when buyers have no agent: the realtor gets both the seller's and the buyer's commission, so they are biased. I think it's more a problem when you sell than when you buy. In effect, if you're selling, the agent would rather see you sell to an unrepresented buyer, even for thousands less, than to a represented buyer, because they get 5% instead of 2.5%.

BTW, I'm also interested on whether it makes sense not to use a realtor at all. It always seems to me that they don't add much value ... but I have 0 experience so...

Thanks,

JD

 

[phatch]

When buying, the primary value is access to the MLS, a listing of homes on the market. Additionally, realtors often are aware of homes before they hit the MLS.

MLS--Multiple Listing Service.

Phil

 

[Dijos]

Using a professional is the cheapest money you can spend. Lots of people have a do-it-yourself attitiude, but when buying a house, the sellers are trying to screw the buyer and vice versa. You may go sith somebody with years of experience; young, hungry agents (with older staff to back them up) will sometimes go faar above and beyond to do whatever it takes to make a client happy. My agent was new to the area, and she was exactly what I wanted:crazy. we skulked around yards, climbed under houses and tore up carpet. I'm still happy with my purchase.
There are some do-it-yourself projects. Real estate, like financial advising, is often better left to the pros.

 

[Burchtree]

All good advice above. If you know you're going to buy a house -- go ahead and get pre-approved for your loan so you can get the jump on a house if you find one you like. If you find a good loan officer, they can usually lead you to a good real estate agent.

 

[DaveH]

BWHAHHA, watch the pre approval. we went through it once, then again once we put in an offer, sometimes preapproval is useless. Also be prepared for stupid people, like can't read "Ending Balance" on a bank statement.

Double check, triple check qaudruple check any numbers they give you, we went to refinance once and we dumped them after they took 3 trys and still couldn't get the numbers right.

We sold once and we got $1000 less then we where supposed to, they made a mistake, "OH! Those numbers where so complex!" they said, yeah right.

If you put money is escrow, make sure you get the account, and the person that administers it, make sure they know exactly where the money is supposed to go. Nothing like moving into a new home to find the choads didn't pay your property tax some months later.

 

[SharpByCoop]

Joss,

I was lucky and we found an old friend who worked for me. He was simply a 'buyers broker' as Gollnick advised and he explained the value of this specialization to us as having no conflict of interest. I would do it again.

Correct me here, but our broker did not cost us anything. He got his commision from the listing agent, and not from us. If we had NO broker we would have had to pay at least the same amount. He was able to negotiate (within reason) our home price down about $15k. He did not cost us--in fact, he paid us!

Coop

 

[IamMatt]

If you have a specific neighborhood you want to buy in, see who sells a lot of houses in that neigborhood. Many Realtors specialze in a specific area--it is called "farming"--and they know the homes there backwards and forwards. They walk the area and keep in touch with the homeowners by phone, email, or newsletters, and often know about houses that are going to come on the market before they are listed.

They also know the value of the homes in their farm down to the nickel.