Before the daggers come out, please remember that I am licensed multi-state Broker and have been for over 12 years, a National Sales Trainer for agents for 6 years and have been providing free Realty Consulting Services for 4 years. I know the pain of being an agent, but as I will discuss here it is not always necessary or sometimes even advisable to engage a real estate agent to represent you when you are purchasing a house. The one thing that you definitely need is an experienced and skilled attorney (local preferably) to create the contract and execute the transaction on your behalf.
First, let's look at why you may want to engage a real estate agent. Notice I said "engage", not "hire". Since you are typically not compensating the agent or brokerage you are not technically hiring an agent or broker. They may (and should) ask you to sign a buyer broker agreement when you engage them. That is to just limit you to burning and churning through agents. Nothing sucks more than working for days, weeks and most time months with a "client" buyer just to have them give you the "parking lot dump". An agent can provide you market insight that if you did independently would take you a while to compile. They are also knowledgeable about the legal documents that are required to make a successful purchase. They maybe a better negotiator than you. They have access to local vendors and other professionals that can make the process a whole lot smoother. And lastly they are accountable and legally liable should your transaction go awry and you need recourse. That is why they carry E&O (errors & omissions) insurance.
Now many people, particularly Realtor's will be up in arms at this point in my column. They will retort with things like "we do so much more than that" or "we conduct business as per our code of ethics" or "we are professionals" or "we have earned advanced designations through ongoing education" and my personal favorite "we are the largest association of professionals in the country".
To answer your question, yes I have been a Realtor for 11 out of the 12 years of being licensed. But engaging a Realtor has no proven benefit over engaging a state licensed real estate sales person. Both must be equally licensed in the state they are providing services, a Realtor is just a licensee that has joined the Realtor club. The state of our present day economy, the state of our housing market and all things tied to it, which is basically the entire economy can all be traced back to the collapse of the market in 2007/8. There is one striking and interesting point to be made about this association as well. It is the only industry that never received any TARP money from the federal government during this crisis. Virtually every other major industry including ones that had nothing to do with housing market i.e. the US Airlines received money from the Feds. The National Association of Realtors or its members, the individual agents, never received a dime. That makes me wonder what the NAR agenda really is, as it is pretty clear it's not for the benefit of its membership.
So now you know what an agent or Realtor brings to your purchase, it is not a lot more than you can do yourself. Actually what you can do for yourself is a lot more, including knowing that you are not losing money or over paying for the house. I know what you are saying, "but I don't pay the agents commission in my purchase, the seller does" true in most cases, but in reality an agent can cost you money that is not attached คอนโด ราคาถูก to the commission. They may miss terms and conditions in your contract that causes monetary loss. What if they gave you skewed or misleading information on the value of the house and you over-paid for it. If the vendors they recommended made mistakes or caused undo delay in the transaction. Or even worse they miss-managed your funds. Which, by the way is the number one reason Brokerages are fined, closed and even the brokers jailed.
It seems pretty harsh, but I can tell you that as a real estate trainer I have taught thousands of agents how to play on words, use specific dialogue, make you think or feel you can't do it alone, and actually convince you that you do not have a choice or alternative but to use them even if your maternal twin is a top national broker. You just need to do your own research on an area and then focus in on a house. Call the listing agent they are more than willing to provide you with all the details in hopes of converting you to a client. At least this way the info that you will be getting will not be filtered by your agent. Check out the popular websites like Zillow, Google and Trulia for independent information. Deal directly with the listing agent. They will ask to represent you just politely decline, but also tell them you want part of the commission they are getting to be credited to you at closing as they don't have to pay a co-broke to another brokerage. Use one of the new up and coming vendor referral web sites if you don't know contractors in the area. And lastly make sure you find and use that experienced, local attorney to create your offer contract, hold your deposit, create the HUD or closing statement and represent you throughout the transaction.
The question is to use an agent? I think the answer is self apparent. I would suggest the only time to engage an agent is under the following circumstances. You are a celebrity or high profile person and you don't want your notoriety to play into your purchase, if you live far from the house and don't have the time or it's impractical to do your own research or it is a short sale or foreclosure purchase.
By JT Steele
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