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I am relocating to another area, about 10 hours driving distance. I have hired a buyer's agent to assist in finding a home. My agent has signed me up with listingbook and through it, I look at homes and let my agent know what I want to see. Because of the distance I have only visited the relocation area a couple of times.
Should my agent be searching for homes that I might be interested in based on my criteria or is that mainly my responsibility? Other than taking me to see homes, what should my agent be doing for me?
Based on your criteria, which your agent should know back, forth, upside, downside, they should search the mls on a weekly to biweekly schedule and email their findings. Hopefully you spelled out exactly your needs: price, square feet, beds, baths, lot size, deck, fireplace, garage, basement, location, etc.
If you can only go to visit once in a while based on the distance, you need to weed out all the properties that don't fit and have a schedule of all of the houses you want to look at during your visit.
Have you actually hired this person or are they just helping you out for the time being?? Do you have a Buyers Agreement that spells out exactly how long they will be working as your fiduciary?
I'm not sure what a good buyer agent "should" do per se, but I can tell you that the agent with whom we signed a buyer agreement did for us. He sent us listings that met our criteria in the desired neighborhoods as they came out and showed us properties we were interested in seeing. In fact, he even previewed the properties that met our criteria as they came to the market so that we wouldn't waste time during our house-hunting trips. Granted, we had very specific criteria, but he listened and respected our wishes. We appreciated his efforts and knowledge of the area as agent and long-time resident.
I can only tell you what I do. I have a relocation package put together giving all information about the area...maps, schools, utilities, taxes, links for jobs online, school information, things to do in the area, etc., explain the different subdivisions of the city and what they have to offer. I send listings via email that fit the criteria, I take additional pictures of the properties if asked, I preview some of the homes on my own and make suggestions. I explain the buying process for my area, what the costs are of purchasing a home here. If they are able, they come here, we go to the various subdivisions, find the one they like and then concentrate on the house. The listings sent are then adjusted accordingly, I preview more of the homes and then they come again and buy. From there, I handle the negotiations, the contract and following the process from start to finish. Then they are again reminded about turning off and on utilities. Help is given with finding a moving company, registering kids for schools, filing for homestead exemption and information about changing registrations for voting and cars. And then I answer any other questions they have.
I am relocating to another area, about 10 hours driving distance. I have hired a buyer's agent to assist in finding a home. My agent has signed me up with listingbook and through it, I look at homes and let my agent know what I want to see. Because of the distance I have only visited the relocation area a couple of times.
Should my agent be searching for homes that I might be interested in based on my criteria or is that mainly my responsibility? Other than taking me to see homes, what should my agent be doing for me?
If your agent knows what your looking for, your agent should be able to put you on an automatic listing mailer. so that you are able to review any new listings that show up from day to day.
When will you be heading back to your relocation area? If is undetermined or a long time out, your REA can send you listings but they may be different when you get here. I usually invite my relocations to my website to do any searches they like (I find a lot of my buyers like to be in control). I will check their favorite areas for thier criteria usually weekly and send any changes to them (new, reduced, pending, etc). If nothing has changed, not a whole lot to send.
As we get closer to the time that they are coming, we get more engaged as we start narrowing down the possibilities....
Haven't been able to get back to this forum in a while.
I appreciate all of the responses. I don't think that my agent has done much of what has been stated in this thread. I have had an opportunity to visit since I last posted and we visited a number of homes.
My agent's company materials state that they provide relocation services so I think I will ask the agent exactly what that consists of.
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