View Full Version : Real estate agents: What should I expect?
frugalone
7-25-18, 12:56pm
Hello fellow-frugalites: Spouse & I are taking the plunge. We're looking for a house. I've been using a real estate agent that I've known for many years. She's a casual friend and a member of my defunct book group. She's also semi-retired, and very sweet.
That said: What should I expect in the 21st century from an agent? So far she has sent me five listings. I don't think she had seen any of these in person, as she was not the seller's agent on them. We sent her a list of things we must have in a house, and our price range. The first place was in the price range, but we didn't like it at all--and there was water in the basement. The second place was about $20K cheaper than what we we expected to pay, but it's a level above a fixer-upper. Spouse asked her what we should be looking at in order to get to the "next step above these" houses. She said $90-$100K. OK, fine--we might be able to do that with help from a relative.
I'm not sure how to phrase this and I hope I'm not babbling. She said "a lot of people just look on the Internet" for properties. I may still be thinking 20th-century, but, um, isn't it the buyer's agent's job to find the properties? We have access to the region's realtors' association page with all the MLS listings, so we do look. I'm just wondering if this is the right agent. She doesn't seem very aggressive (I hate that word, but I think you know what I mean). Like yesterday: she sent us two more listings. One was backing the main street in our town (YUCK) and I'm pretty sure I told her we do NOT want to live in that town any longer. The other had a pool. I know I told her we don't need a pool--we don't WANT a pool.
So...what should I expect from a real estate agent? Is this largely gonna be our job? If so, what do they do to earn their commission? I'm very confused.
Is this agent an exclusively buyer's agent? If not, she gets her money from the seller and will not necessarily be working in YOUR best interest. Sure, its good when all interests align, but if there's a conflict she's not bound to your interests over the sellers.
I see the real estate's job more as closing the deal, and helping move along the necessary paperwork. They also do the open houses/viewings once you've determined you are interested.
Is there a reason why you aren't doing some initial pre screening of your own on the internet?
Hi, herbgeek: No, she's not exclusively a buyer's agent.
We have been doing the pre-screening on our own. Frankly, it's a bit overwhelming, but that's how Spouse found a couple of properties we looked at. Prior to contacting her, we did some drive-bys on our own as well.
Should I be looking for a buyer's agent?
Teacher Terry
7-25-18, 1:58pm
Yes I would get a buyers agent. 6 years ago the realtor found us houses. Yes we looked on the internet too. Your agent is not doing her job.
Yeah, she's being pretty casual about it. >8)
OK--How do I find a buyer's agent amongst the many many agents online? I just Googled "buyer's agent my county" and a LOT of results came up.
After several less than stellar experiences with realtors, we have bought/sold several houses since without one but had to hire one when we moved to Colorado. As mentioned, she was only somewhat helpful with all the closing paperwork but we found all the houses we liked ourselves before she even knew about them. Including the one we bought. I don't think she really earned her commission. Next house, we will seek out a FSBO and/or use a 1% agent for paperwork only.
Gardenarian
7-25-18, 3:07pm
We have always looked for houses ourselves online, as well as relying on a real estate agent. Zillow is a great way to look for houses. You can filter it by the size, location, price, and other factors. Realtor.com is similar, but I have found more on Zillow. It includes sale history, so you can see how much the house sold for previously, and price per square foot, which is handy for making comparisons, and lots of other info. Zillow includes FSBO, foreclosures, and regular sales.
A real estate agent might have inside information on houses that are just coming onto the market, and might call your attention to areas that you might not have considered.
The last three houses we bought we found ourselves on Zillow, and then had our agent do the negotiations for us. (We own a couple rental houses.) Agents are great at knowing what inspections need to be done and general real estate trends, but only you know what kind of house you want.
One more thing; when you find a place you're really interested in, ask your agent if you can spend some time there alone - at least an hour. Sit in the yard and see how noisy it is. Take lots of pictures. Take some measurements. Check it out in the evening, too. Note where you get sun, and lack of it. Walk around the neighborhood. Most people spend only 10 minutes looking at a house before they purchase, less than you'd spend on a pair of shoes.
frugalone, you should expect more from your agent than you're getting. Unless your market is very slow, there should be a number of listings to sift through. Your agent should at least have information on and access to houses that are not yet on the public MLS and be bringing them to your attention if they look like a good fit.
However, as herbgeek said, if you are not paying her for her services, she represents sellers and you may not get her best effort for you. I can't say if what she's bringing you is a reflection of the properties currently on the market or if she's not being diligent or that something going on in her life is distracting her.
It also may be that she's the type of person who really needs specifics on location, size, how fixed your budget is, housing styles, etc. It probably would help her (or whoever you end up using as an agent) to be given a written list of specifics ("1500-2000 square feet maximum", "single-family home" ) and to rank [I]must-haves/nice-to-haves (e.g., must not be in East Overshoe, must have a two-car garage (nice to have it attached), nice to have an eat-in-kitchen, etc.). Keep the list updated as preferences become known and refer back to the list if she gives you a listing that clearly does not match your requirements.
We've found Web browsing a great way to shortcut kissing a lot of frogs but not everyone is up to it and an agent can show you a house that you might like even though it's not officially for sale (the house we're in now is just one such example). But I suspect you need to give whoever is serving as your agent a clear understanding of what you want and what you absolutely do not want and then let them find what meets your wishes.
We've been looking on Zillow, as well as checking Trulia for comps.
Maybe we ought to try the written list thing.
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone!
iris lilies
7-25-18, 4:36pm
Realtor.com
Realtor.com is fed directly from MLS data. In that regard it has a leg up on the other websites.
The agent's value is in negotiating the ins and outs of the process--not necessarily researching the BEST house for you. I would definitely take part in that aspect of home-buying.
I found our agent helpful in asking the right questions, guiding the inspection, helping pick the right offer, being the go-between, answering questions about the community.
But we often were the ones to say to her, "We like this house. Can you please set up a meeting." In fact, we were the ones who found the house we're in up in VT. I don't think she ever would have picked it for us. I frankly don't think she "read" me well in terms of what I was looking for, but for everything else, she was great.
As far as buyer's/seller's agents... when we were selling BILs house, we hired an agent, and we negotiated a lower commission, with an even lower commission if she actually sold the house, too. We thought that was a good thing, but it was a mistake. Not only was she our listing agent, she sold the house, and we were never comfortable that she wasn't acting in the best interest of the buyer over us. We may have been paranoid, but honestly, as the Bible says, "You can't serve two masters."
I have only bought one house so don't have a lot of experience negotiating through the process of bidding, closing, home inspections, other complicated details, and general advice. That was where I found a realtor helpful. Generally speaking, I've found aggressive realtors annoying, but there is a difference between aggressive and hard working. My realtor took me on about 30 walk thoughs before I found the right one. Once i found a realtor I was comfortable working with, I did not have any regrets about signing a buyer's agent contract. I sold my parents house as part of their estate to an interested person before it went on the market, but used a lawyer for all the paper work. It can save a lot of money if you can find a way around realtor fees.
I used a buyer's agent and reconmend that.
I used a buyer's agent and reconmend that.
Frankly, I'm not completely clear on what a "buyer's agent" is. Can't any realtor be a listing agent (seller's agent) OR a buyer's agent depending upon who hires them?
Some exclusively work for buyers, some will do either.
I would ask the agent what you should expect of her/him?
IMO, the agent previews anything they want to show you to see how closely it meets your requests. Then they take you to see them all.
IE: 3bed/2 bath, 2c garage, 20min yard, no fixer upper projects within 15 minutes of downtown.
That is the list we gave our agent. He called us 2 weeks later and lined up 6. we spent 2h looking at them all and made an offer on #6 the next day. It just so happens #6 was a listing of his which he disclosed to us when we finished looking at #5. So we came here with the knowledge that he could NOT negotiate for us but only carry offers and answer questions.
As far as buyer's/seller's agents... when we were selling BILs house, we hired an agent, and we negotiated a lower commission, with an even lower commission if she actually sold the house, too. We thought that was a good thing, but it was a mistake. Not only was she our listing agent, she sold the house, and we were never comfortable that she wasn't acting in the best interest of the buyer over us. We may have been paranoid, but honestly, as the Bible says, "You can't serve two masters."
In Minnesota, if the agents on the seller's side and the buyer's side represent the same RE broker (think: company), the situation is called "double agency". Home buyers and sellers retaining an RE agent have to sign a form indicating that they know this can happen and that what they say to their buying-side agent could be shared with the selling-side agent (which generally does not serve the buyer). That's one reason why hiring an independent buyer's agent is helpful because double agency cannot then happen.
dado potato
7-26-18, 9:51am
I devise the process of buying a house into stages.
Stage One: Define the radius of your search ( a specific geographic area, typically bounded by streets on a map).
Stage 2: Define your requirements, such as square feet, number of bedrooms, solar orientation, heating fuel, etc.)
Stage 4: study the market (I used Zillow and Trulia): what have houses sold for in the area, fitting your requirements? Based on this, you can estimate comparable selling price per square feet, which would imply a final target buying price, assuming your initial offer will be lower.
Stage 5: Retain a lawyer to represent your interests in the transaction. (Realtors are more than willing to write an offer, but their duty is to the seller. I prefer to have an experienced lawyer whose sole duty is to me.)
Stage 6: Inspect properties. I arrange with each selling agent to show. Last time we moved, I believe we looked at 8 different properties, shown by 8 agents, before we found one that had everything we wanted. The role of the agent, thus, was to enable our access as potential buyers and to answer questions that came up on our inspection.
Stage 7: Offer and acceptance. Offer was subject to inspection by an independent contractor and was prepared by buyer's lawyer. In our case it was a cash transaction, and the lawyer handled the cash, dispersing it when all conditions were satisfied.
Teacher Terry
7-26-18, 10:23am
If you use a buyer’s agent their duty is to you not the seller and no reason to pay a lawyer. If they are not finding you homes to see they are not doing their job.
frugalone
7-26-18, 10:31am
You'll like this one:
Last week we were walking around a neighborhood, checking out the different houses. This dude comes out of his back door and says, "I've seen you walking around looking at the houses, and you're looking in my backyard, and I'm telling you to stop it right now."
Very aggressive. We explained we were looking at a house for sale. He's all, "Which one?"
WTF?! It was hard to miss the huge inflatable pink flamingo in his swimming pool.
Guess we don't wanna live there.
iris lilies
7-26-18, 11:51am
Part time real estate agents usually give part time results. I would avoid.
I would WANT to be checking Realtor.com regularly, but
I guess some people dont want to do that. I find it fun. I found our last house on Realtor.com, and in fact, remember it from the time before when it was sold because I have been checking listings in Hermann for 3+ years.
You'll like this one:
Last week we were walking around a neighborhood, checking out the different houses. This dude comes out of his back door and says, "I've seen you walking around looking at the houses, and you're looking in my backyard, and I'm telling you to stop it right now."
Very aggressive. We explained we were looking at a house for sale. He's all, "Which one?"
WTF?! It was hard to miss the huge inflatable pink flamingo in his swimming pool.
Guess we don't wanna live there.
We got in trouble for that the other day too. We have a favorite neighborhood and we were driving slow and looking at some recent remodels that stayed within the feel of the old neighborhood. Someone called the police on us but who can blame them. I said "Yeah, they watch out for each other." I'm sure with our little black truck we looked like we were looking for Amazon boxes or something or like we were casing to come back at night and burgle.
I've never used a realestate agent (bought directly from old man who built a house every few years). But I would expect them to listen to my list and find things suitable and give inside scoop or tell me what to stay away from.
SteveinMN
7-26-18, 12:44pm
you're looking in my backyard, and I'm telling you to stop it right now.
If you can see it from the sidewalk or street, there's nothing illegal going on. If he doesn't want his backyard on view, he should put up a privacy fence. And hope Google doesn't show up with a drone.
I bought my first place sans realtor; it worked out well. I probably should have done the same with this house.
I'm so very glad you can browse houses on line now; I need to look at many, many properties to come up with one or two to look at.
I've never bought a home, but as a commercial insurance underwriter who does non-medical professional liability I can tell you that the biggest source of claims on real estate broker professional liability policies are double agent issues. (the second biggest issue is selling agents that try to hide property defects that they know about) If/when we ever buy a house I'll be looking at either using a buyer's agent or just hiring a lawyer experienced in residential real estate to handle the details/paperwork of the purchase.
We just had a "buyer's agent" and the guy was an absolute disaster. Bullied us to buy houses with major, major issues--last one had an attic full of mold. He never returned our earnest money on that one. In my book, he acted like a bully and a thief. He also made us sign a contract that we never should have signed, that we would only buy from him in certain counties until a date six months out. Never again. I like the idea of having our lawyer draw up a contract and working only with seller's agents for access.
It is worth remembering that, unless you somehow arrange to pay up front (far from customary in the U.S.), no real estate agent gets paid commission until the property closes. So both seller's and buyer's agents have an incentive to get you to buy now Now NOW.
(the second biggest issue is selling agents that try to hide property defects that they know about)
Interesting...the house we bought here had no latent defects (I hope) but was a rental when we bought it so we had to honor the lease for six months. The seller's agent (and perhaps ours) told us it had one tenant but as things rolled on, it turned out there were three. They made up some bogus lease agreements right before we submitted a contract for the additional two and (we think) purposefully left a letter off one of the lease's surnames. I did some sleuthing right after we bought the house and that tenant was a felon parolee charged with attempted murder and domestic violence. I will always wonder if the two agents colluded as they knew it would be a hard sell in that situation.
Oh Pinktoe, that is yuch. I am looking at a house that is currently rented and you can't get in to see it--no showings, and I wonder about that. Ugh.
Oh Pinktoe, that is yuch. I am looking at a house that is currently rented and you can't get in to see it--no showings, and I wonder about that. Ugh.
That would be a big NO for me. If you can't see it...what are the renters doing to it?
Yeah, I wonder that too. Pinkytoe, did you get in to see the house and was it trashed in any way by renters? You hear a lot of horror stories about disgruntled renters.
Yeah, I wonder that too. Pinkytoe, did you get in to see the house and was it trashed in any way by renters? You hear a lot of horror stories about disgruntled renters.
I'll tell you what my dad did with the last renters of the farm house. He told them the bulldozer would be there in a month, Tuesday 3 pm. Then he told them 2 week, Tuesday 3 pm. He reminded them a week out. The day of they were pulling things out of the house as the bulldozer worked on the back corner.
frugalone
7-27-18, 10:58am
Spouse spent hours looking at "comps" on Trulia and Zillow (I guess they are generated by an algorhythm) (sp?). I don't know about other areas, but the comps are all over the place around here. They seem to be based mostly on price, not on features.
That said, this is not a fun area to look for houses. It's an old rust-belt depressed area with a lot of cheaply built houses constructed when the town was booming in the late 19th and early 20th century. There's a river the floods every so often, brooks and streams that do the same, and a water table that tends to make a lot of basements wet. Also, due to the construction of the older places, they are not made of good material--it's some kind of "cement" made of anything from old ashes to mud. And it crumbles.
Also, we're in the cheap seats. We can't afford anything that great. We're buying because rentals are outrageous here due to out-of-town landlords from neighboring states snapping up houses and renting them to people emigrating to our area. (Have had a huge Hispanic influx in the past decade).
My sister has given me a reference--I'm going to email her now and see what she has to say.
Teacher Terry
7-27-18, 11:27am
I would never buy a house I couldn’t see.
iris lilies
7-27-18, 11:49am
People here who buy property on the courthouse steps are amazing to me. They buy with interior sight unseen. That is a risk.But rhen, they are pretty much buying the property as a shell and assuming they will put in a ton of money to renovate it. That is not a bad approach because that’s what we did with our house. We bought 4 brick walls that contained two new windows. There was rough flooring on 3floors. The rest of it was gutted. In this 3 story house, there wasnt even an interior staircase. So in a way that is good, it was completely a clean slate.
The people who buy gut rehabs know how much it costs to rip out everything. Other than plaster, it is pretty cheap, a week’s work.
We drove by the tiny house we sold recently, and the new owners have gutted it. Yay for Them! This tiny house needs everything, there is nothing worth saving on the interior. It is back down to its original two rooms plus attic bedroom. I cant wait to see what it looks like when renovated. I may have to re-buy it when they are done, haha. DH would divorce me if I did that, but
I always loved that little bitty house house and its location.
I always loved that little bitty house house and its location. Didn't you show us a photo or two of it once?
The people who buy gut rehabs know how much it costs to rip out everything. Other than plaster, it is pretty cheap, a week’s work.
Ripping out stuff is pretty cheap, but there probably (tens of) thousands of people who got suckered into the house-flipping craze and lost $$$$$ because they thought they were good with a hammer but they never thought how much even a quickly-flipped house would bring in its neighborhood (comps) or what the local code/zoning folks required for either a CO or a sale. Here, for investment real estate, there are requirements like who can file the city-required cert documenting that the heating system is up to snuff. Not only can most local plumbing companies not supply the cert; Harry Homedepot surely cannot, either. It's an expense the suburban folks don't even suspect exists but they don't get to rent out the place until the report has been submitted to the city.
"comps" on Trulia and Zillow
Yeah, fun numbers there. A lot of people eating pie on Trulia and Zillow, thinking their houses are worth what those sites say they are. In fact, I just looked at both sites' estimates for our house and think they're about 10% higher than what this house would sell for in the real world (I've kept track of that closely since I bought the place). I looked at my rental property and they were about that high over on it, too, with Zillow noting that the estimate had dropped about eight percent in the last 30 days alone for no explicable reason (this neighborhood is hot right now and there's an extreme shortage of houses in that price range).
I would never buy a house I couldn’t see.
Ditto. And though inspectors don't catch everything, I wouldn't buy one I couldn't have inspected. I get that you should give tenants time to vacate for a showing but not allowing a showing? You're hiding something, even if it's that the tenants don't know the place is being sold.
I think if one is very sure of the neighborhood one is buying in as we were, then buying sight unseen (as we did) can work out. We had already zeroed in on a neighborhood when first looking and when our house popped up, we jumped with an offer even though out of state. The realtor did a video walk-through with comments. It was not practical or economical for us to keep going back every time a house seemed interesting. We have bought enough houses to know that inspectors always miss things and aren't always reliable. We actually had a separate plumbing inspection done. Other than the weird tenant issue and some oddball things the previous owner "updated", everything turned out OK. Old houses in dying rust belt cities sounds worrisome, but maybe there are some solid brick houses that have been maintained at the least. Plumbing and electric is always a big thing to check out in any older house.
sounds like your realtor's heart isn't in the game. The last realtor I had, I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with her before our first house-viewing, giving her MLS # of houses I liked online, and what appealed to me about them, and my must-have list. Long story short, on our first (and only) meeting day, she showed me 6 houses, all of which met my criteria, and one of them is the house I'm sitting in today. That's what a realtor should be! But, this wasn't my first house and I was pretty specific about what I had to have, and I didn't expect perfection, either. Gardenarian gave you some great advice about checking out the house more fully. And pay top dollar for a mad-dog inspector, and walk the property with the inspector (you can get some great advice this way) Frugalone, any houses built in the late 1940s/1950s in your town? From what I understand, that was the golden age of house-building.
iris lilies
7-29-18, 10:42am
sounds like your realtor's heart isn't in the game. The last realtor I had, I spent about 20 minutes on the phone with her before our first house-viewing, giving her MLS # of houses I liked online, and what appealed to me about them, and my must-have list. Long story short, on our first (and only) meeting day, she showed me 6 houses, all of which met my criteria, and one of them is the house I'm sitting in today. That's what a realtor should be! But, this wasn't my first house and I was pretty specific about what I had to have, and I didn't expect perfection, either. Gardenarian gave you some great advice about checking out the house more fully. And pay top dollar for a mad-dog inspector, and walk the property with the inspector (you can get some great advice this way) Frugalone, any houses built in the late 1940s/1950s in your town? From what I understand, that was the golden age of house-building.
The golden age of house building was pre WWII. Imho, of course.
Our 1941 Hermann house has godawful wallboard. Not plaster, that wokld have been tupical,for that year of hoise. It is hideous. It will all have to come down.
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