Learn me real estate agents

Does it really matter as the buyer? My MIL is pressuring my wife to use her friend. I'm not jumping at that; frankly I'd rather use someone I don't know at all in a personal setting. MIL said that "She'd use her to buy but not to sell". I don't know what that means or why.

Any advice on this? How do I find a good one? Is it ok to go with someone you know personally? Everyone has an opinion, but I've noticed that the people I'm getting opinions from have either never bought or sold a house, or have bought and sold 1 house in the past 30 years.

Real estate agents charge a great deal of money for something you can do for almost nothing. I'm not sure why they even exist, and how they get away with charging half as much as they do.

Zomby Woof wrote: Real estate agents charge a great deal of money for something you can do for almost nothing. I'm not sure why they even exist, and how they get away with charging half as much as they do.

I view it as a service for the rich, if you had mad money would you rather spend a tiny fraction of it to have someone take care of the tasks involved in buying and selling a house, or DIY it, at the expense of valuable hookers & blow time?

But I'll give a +1 to the quote above in the context of average joes hiring real estate agents.

An agent gives you access to the MLS. That's about it.

You can sometimes save a little money by contacting the listing agent directly when you see a lawn sign or ad (they will be both the listing and selling agent, so they are getting 2 shares of the commission, and more willing to negotiate).

Dirt pimps. Sigh.

Go with someone who's been in the biz for a while, not a soccer mom who decided she needed a "career" that could fit in around everything else in her life and fulfill her. Referrals are everything for finding someone who's not an idiot. Basically, as a buyer the agent will get you access to the houses you find and guide you through the paperwork. Hopefully they'll also find houses you might have overlooked, or know about ones that are coming on the market and get you in first. A good one will also give you references for good title companies, etc whilst a bad one will refer her friends and you'll end up screwed.

A good one can find houses you would have overlooked otherwise. Our current place had been really poorly advertised and was sitting on the market during the pre-2008 selling frenzy because it was just so badly listed. Our agent picked it out of the rest and we did really well because of it.

I've been involved in three purchases and four sales in the past 15 years. I've also walked out of a closing because the paperwork didn't say what it was supposed to say - that gets people's attention, let me tell you. That was due to a referral from a soccer mom RealtorTM.

The phrase tits on a boar comes to mind, but I've used them to buy three houses, sell two houses and find a rental house. I really am not sure out of all the ones I've dealt with if any of them have provided much if any added value. We've fired a couple of them because their worthlessness and incompetence was too much to bear.

redfin.. Use redfin...

https://www.redfin.com/ cheap rates and $500 back to you at closing. I only use real real estate agents when my relo company pays all their fees..

Keith Tanner wrote: Basically, as a buyer the agent will get you access to the houses you find and guide you through the paperwork. Hopefully they'll also find houses you might have overlooked, or know about ones that are coming on the market and get you in first. A good one will also give you references for good title companies, etc whilst a bad one will refer her friends and you'll end up screwed. A good one can find houses you would have overlooked otherwise.

Exactly this. An agent gets you access to the houses you want to tour and to the MLS that inventories them. An agent may also be able to give you early access properties their firm is working with that are not yet in MLS.

Agents' usefulness varies widely--a good agent will be your advocate, pointing out subtle issues you may not have noticed (recalled pluming or siding, drainage problems, zoning weirdness, bad school districts, troubleshome HOAs). This assistance and advice is 'free' to you, the buyer, because the seller is expected to budget agent fees into their asking price.

In my experience as both a buyer and seller, I don't ever remember feeling that their help was worth 3% of the sale price.

I have a friend that is a real estate agent. I was planning to use him to buy and sell when I did that last year, but my parents pressured me into using a different guy. He was OK, but there were issues, like he would only use Juno to send contracts to me at 8 PM but he only got the free Juno so he couldn't send big files. I almost switched because of that. In the end he got it sold fast, and I didn't use him to buy (it was FSBO and I found it on my own).

I would have been more comfortable using my friend, but I could not get my parents to extricate themselves from the process.

I've seen a selling agent earn her commission - a high end agent helped my in-laws sell their little (sub-1000 square foot) place. Between having the contacts, excellent staging, great photography and a well done writeup, it sold for about 20% more than the market value. She was well worth her fee. I couldn't believe it.

I've never worked with a crap agent while selling, but that's no accident.

GameboyRMH wrote: I view it as a service for the rich, if you had mad money would you rather spend a tiny fraction of it to have someone take care of the tasks involved in buying and selling a house, or DIY it, at the expense of valuable hookers & blow time? But I'll give a +1 to the quote above in the context of average joes hiring real estate agents.

How many houses have you bought and sold?

A real estate agent can be great or they can be terrible, but a great one is well worth what they cost. And most of the time as a buyer you're not costing yourself anything by using a real estate agent. Agents in most good markets - ie much of the US right now - aren't going to be jumping at cutting their commissions to get you a good deal.

As to how to pick a good one the first time, I do not know. I've only found a good one by painful trial and error.

We used a family friend. Bad decision because she is not a good real estate agent. I ended up doing all her work for her, even down to fixing errors on the documents she had "prepared" for us and contacting and dealing directly with the bank, title company, lawyer, etc myself.

At the end of the day, it was a bit of a weird sale because there was a relocation firm involved on the other end. It should have been super easy money for our friend though because she was our buying agent and we already picked the house we wanted before she got involved. The good news is we negotiated with the sellers that the relocation company would pay all the agent fees, but the bad news of that is basically our real estate agent who was already inept started to get bullied (unbeknownst to her) by the relocation companies' seller agent and basically she couldn't even fight for us, she ended up fighting against us. Things started happening like our agent would contact us and say we have to do x or sign y or whatever, and when we ask why, she would say, "well, because the relocation company said you have to". HAH. yeah right. What does the LAW say?

Wouldn't recommend.

The experience was so bad I have considered taking the $800 or whatever class and becoming an agent myself just so I don't have to go through another buyer agent ever again. Agree that a good seller agent is very much worth their fee.

My words of advice are, don't use a neighbor, don't use a friend, don't use a family member. It's a buisness transaction and if they screw up or do something you don't like or approve of, you need to be able to call them out on it without fear of damaging whatever relationship you have with them. We used my wife's sister/brother inlaws to sell our house down here, we ran into a lot of issues with them not listening to us, and we still aren't on speaking terms with them.

I'm going to try this Redfin site to sell our current place down here.

As a buyer, the realtor working for you is "free"--the seller pays the commission in the proceeds of the sale. The only advantage of not having one as the buyer, is that you might save 1-3% in the offer, because no commission is paid.

You may want to request "buyers agency"--without it, the agent still has to represent the best interest of the seller. There may be a small fee for this--but it allows for the agent to have your best interests in mind.

Contracts, along with contingencies and so forth can be tricky if you're not used to that kind of thing. A good agent will be aware of the market in the area of the subject property and can shed light on pluses and minuses of the subject as well. They can also help with how to structure seller credits, closing cost credits and so forth, all of which can save you out-of-pocket expenses.

I think a good agent is a great idea.

Sounds like everyone else covered it, I would pass for sure.

My method was to do the work myself and see if it would help negotiations(as a buyer). If a selling agent didn't want to work directly with me I went through a rebating realtor. That's what ended up working ( my realtor cut me a check for 1% at closing) but there were plenty of houses that right off the bat took off 3% of the asking price.

For selling I can see it being worth it to have a real realtor depending on the type of person you are. I personally will be selling buy owner when the time comes.

I bought my first house FSBO. I tried to sell it FSBO and it was slow. I used a guy we knew and it old quickly.

One thing I noticed is a RA will take a buyer through three or four homes and then point out to the buyers why your house is a good deal and upswell the reasons why.

When I was looking for a house in 1987 I burned through 5-6 people then bought FSBO.

Datsun310Guy wrote: I bought my first house FSBO. I tried to sell it FSBO and it was slow. I used a guy we knew and it old quickly. One thing I noticed is a RA will take a buyer through three or four homes and then point out to the buyers why your house is a good deal and upswell the reasons why. When I was looking for a house in 1987 I burned through 5-6 people then bought FSBO.

Datsun, any recommendations specifically? We're looking in Elmhurst (aren't you in Lisle or DG?)

(EDIT: And we've decided against the multi-unit property, fwiw)

I grew up and bought my first house in DG. My sister has done well selling/buying using Diane Coyle. Her brother was my dentist and was a really good guy.

Look south a bit in Lombard, Downers Grove, Lisle, or Westmont.

Westmont is a biker type town that is near Downers and Hinsdale. An under rated gem.

http://www.realtor.com/realestateagents/Diane-Coyle_Downers-Grove_IL_25542_09267571

I've moved a bunch. In 9th house in 19 years of marriage. Have bought and sold by owner and with an agent for a few. I don't like to think about the commissions I've paid...

The best thing in my opinion that an RE agent can offer is knowledge of the neighborhoods. I don't mean schools and stuff, I mean the home builder, the dirt - common problems in certain places (one neighborhood near my current house had a stump bury pit under EVERY driveway ($$$), other places have sinkholes, etc).

If you already know the area, this value may be negligible, but for some body new to town... that kind of intel is valuable.

A long time, top selling agent is a good filter. Definitely avoid friends or relatives. Not worth the hassle.

It is also worth noting that most if not all RE commissions are negotiable.