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Well it kind of depends if you're buying or selling, I think. We got an agent who was a "buyers' agent" when we bought two years ago here in Florida. This means that the agent is working for *you*, not for people who are trying to sell their properties.
Thanks for your post!
As for the buying/selling agent... I don't see the benifit of buying realtor (if I am buying a house). They say you don't pay them directly, but you do - they are getting paid from whatever you pay for the house, so at the end it's your money.
If you are trying to "justify" their purpose in a purchase, then its going to take a while to do that. With websites like Zillow, Realtor.com, Trulia, etc and also For Sale By Owner, you can do your own homework and choose what homes to see. Realtors will always push homes down your throat (some more diplomatically than others), but if you have specific requirements then just go FSBO and be done. No need for a realtor to open those doors. Official For Sale by Owner site: Homes for Sale, Sell a House, Buy Real Estate | ForSaleByOwner.com - FSBO
They have an inventory weather you like it or not, and they will try to show you homes that are not in your price range nor your likes. We had this happen before and went the FSBO route on both homes we bought in the past, and had no issues what so ever.
They don't NEED to waste any gas on buyers nowadays because there are plenty of resources online where buyers can access information, and many realtors also list MLS listings too. I see no purpose for them at all, and won't use one in the future either unless we wanted to sell, in which case we'd be shopping around a bit and re-search them very well to see if they truly "know" marketing. Other than that, go FSBO and you're done.
Frankly, I also stay away from those who post horrible photos of properties, or no photos at all. If they post nice looking professional photographs, then I may contact one, if not I won't bother, it just means they don't really care how they present a property for a seller, which tells "ME" the buyer that they don't really value their work much. They are supposed to "showcase" properties for sale, and not throw them on MLS and forget about them.
To add one more thing: A Realtor needs to pick up an area and master it. Especially in Florida, where so many people are moving blindfolded. They should know the area you are looking at from geography to population etc, only then they can be useful.
It's a great post, thank you for writing this!
Unfortunatly I don't see many houses for sale by owners in our area. Most are either a short sale or bank owned homes. Next time one of these come around, I will try to work with listing agent.
As for the realtors to know the area, it's better is they live in the area they are working. Otherwise they cannot really answer a simple question about traffic...
See ..your attitude that they know nothing than opening and closing a door is your problem. If you think you know it all, you probably do it by yourself and save money.
But I will answer your question. Do you know which of the short sales that are out there are a good deal and have a high probability of closing? Well, I even posted here
Some of the significant advice were houses that would really need significant repair cost that I have no idea what that cost would be without contacting a contractor. Before going out to see a house, after I send her the selection, she would get as much information about the house and the neighborhood and give us a report when we meet at the house, not just locking and unlocking house. She is the one whoo gave me an idea of transfering the home and flood insurance of the then-owners directly rather than spending tones of time searching for one and it worked seemlessly--we knew exactly the insurance cost (and a great deal) and have everything ready by closing.
Above all my realtor was available 24/7 (not that I called on the wiered hours but it is really important to be fast). If I saw a house online now, we could go out to see it today or tomorrow and she could write our offer after we saw even if it is evening. Time is important. When we bought our house, the house came on market on Friday and we saw it on Saturday and on Sunday we have a signed and agreed contract. Such a speed from your realtor and in my case from my excellent broker, who wrote the pre-approval on Saturday was critical. Several people were coming to see the house on Monday and the house was off market.
Another very honest thing the realtor did was that disclosing the fact that the seller was offering an insentive above the normal 3% for buyers realtor (this is common when someone want a fast close). She even showed me the paper that has the note on that She let that part for negotiating and didn't ask more. That was key for closing the deal. To give you an idea how good deal I got, I bought just three years ago and my home appraised more than what I paid for and enough to get me out of FHA and save hundereds per month through refinancing.
Oh, I still keep contact with her and I just recently got mls data on the area that I live for sold and pending homes for free. That information helped me to know where the appraisal may come.
I can add more....but I want your realtor to earn it...
You see, my attitude came from my negative experience.
I like your post and found it helpful, so thank you for taking your time to write it!
Back to my experience... One realtor were always late. Really. Always. EVERY SINGLE time!
Then she rescheduled our appoitments because she had other clients coming from out of town... Gone.
One was nice and avail. all the time, but her "reports" she gave me before entering a house were not really helpful. It took me 5 minutes to look at this house and area around it on Zillow, another 5 minutes to pull up recent sale history on pasco county appraisal site and do the math...
She didn't point out on potential cons. during our initial walk. I had to point it to her to justify why we are not going to offer 10% on top of asking price as she suggested.
Last realtor was emailing me listing with smaller houses even though I told him the size of house we are looking for... I said house without pool and received few listings with pools... Asked for single family home and received a listing for townhouse...
I guess it takes time and patience to find a good realtor. Before I started the process I was sure there is a benefit from the realtor and now I see my realtors don't earn their $$ (around 8K if you would like to know the value). Everything I heard were "make an offer, go above asking price, it won't last long" and "it's a best time to buy a house"...
So, what realtors are getting paid for? Thousands of dollars for opening houses (I was told by one realtor that she is willing to show me 10 houses with no charge and after that she will charge me for any additional house) and emailing paperwork seems too much for their job. Again, I might have a bad experience and it's not typical.
Please share with me what your realtors were doing for you when you were selling/buying your houses? Maybe I should look for better realtor or if they are not responsible for doing some researches about houses, maybe I should contact listing agents directly… Maybe I want too much from a realtor?
If you're internet savvy, realtors add basically no value. They're a luxury, not a necessity -- if you don't want to do the research yourself, get a realtor; if you don't want to negotiate yourself, get a realtor; etc. But they've tried to create a system to try to perpetuate their profession as some sort of necessity, and most people don't understand how little value they add, so you're pretty much stuck using one.
The easy part of realtor "need" is the MLS database. If you're a buyer, you need access so you know what's out there. Sites like Zillow and Trulia are helpful in a lot of ways (picking neighborhoods, determining home value, etc.), but they're not updated fast enough. Meanwhile, if you're selling a home, you need it on the MLS database so that people can find it. But this is easy. If you're buying, just about every realtor will give you access in exchange for your email address. You'll get some spam from them, but that's well worth it. And, if you're selling, you can find realtors who'll put your home on the MLS for a few hundred bucks. Again, well worth it.
The challenging part of the "need" is when you're a buyer, because most sellers don't understand they don't need a luxury service, and lock themselves into a 6% commission. And the buyer -- who pays for everything -- is stuck footing the bill. But good luck negotiating that rate down if you're a buyer. We approached sellers agents and said "we're not using a realtor, so we want you to take 4%." They uniformly refused; they'd prefer to split the 6% with a buyers' agent and only get 3%. 6% is a sacred cow. So you need a buyers' agent who'll take the 3% and then give most of it back to you at closing (we got 2% back, so we ended up at the 4% we had initially offered).
In time, this 'realtor as standard' practice should die out. The average seller will realize that she doesn't need the luxury service, the 6% guarantee will no longer be standard, and buyers will be free to operate without an agent if they want. But that's got to be driven by sellers, since they're the ones guaranteeing 6%. If you're a seller, paint your house/rooms neutral colors, keep everything clean, pay $300 to get your house on MLS and a sign for out front, and ask somewhere in the neighborhood of the price estimate on zillow. There, now you don't need a realtor. Of course, down here, it'll probably take a little longer for the change to complete. We have a lot of people who need/want the luxury service because they're too old to understand how to use the internet, because they're far away and can't handle the transaction remotely, etc.
See ..your attitude that they know nothing than opening and closing a door is your problem. If you think you know it all, you probably do it by yourself and save money.
But I will answer your question. Do you know which of the short sales that are out there are a good deal and have a high probability of closing? Well, I even posted here
Some of the significant advice were houses that would really need significant repair cost that I have no idea what that cost would be without contacting a contractor. Before going out to see a house, after I send her the selection, she would get as much information about the house and the neighborhood and give us a report when we meet at the house, not just locking and unlocking house. She is the one whoo gave me an idea of transfering the home and flood insurance of the then-owners directly rather than spending tones of time searching for one and it worked seemlessly--we knew exactly the insurance cost (and a great deal) and have everything ready by closing.
Above all my realtor was available 24/7 (not that I called on the wiered hours but it is really important to be fast). If I saw a house online now, we could go out to see it today or tomorrow and she could write our offer after we saw even if it is evening. Time is important. When we bought our house, the house came on market on Friday and we saw it on Saturday and on Sunday we have a signed and agreed contract. Such a speed from your realtor and in my case from my excellent broker, who wrote the pre-approval on Saturday was critical. Several people were coming to see the house on Monday and the house was off market.
Another very honest thing the realtor did was that disclosing the fact that the seller was offering an insentive above the normal 3% for buyers realtor (this is common when someone want a fast close). She even showed me the paper that has the note on that She let that part for negotiating and didn't ask more. That was key for closing the deal. To give you an idea how good deal I got, I bought just three years ago and my home appraised more than what I paid for and enough to get me out of FHA and save hundereds per month through refinancing.
Oh, I still keep contact with her and I just recently got mls data on the area that I live for sold and pending homes for free. That information helped me to know where the appraisal may come.
I can add more....but I want your realtor to earn it...
You prove the point. Speed is crucial in a sellers market, if you don't see the property the day is listed and are ready to make an offer then you may be a back up offer the next day. It is impossible for an agent to provide that immediateness to all their customer, so someone is losing out. I agree first time buyer, new to the area, sure there is value there. Since it wasn't my first rodeo and was very familiar with the area for me it was a frustrating experience. I went through 3 agents, the last one finally could tell that i was ready to walk away, and when he couldn't make it he would text me the code of the house, i lost 3 houses including the one that i ended up buying, I called the listing agent and she explained to me that the offer they had was shaky and we put in a back up offer and it came through. What I advised my brother in law who recently bought a house was to just go with the biggest agency, because often they will hear about houses being listed prior to the MLS from another in-house agent and as long as you are offering the asking price, the house hits the market already under contract. The house across the street from me sold the same way, the sign went up with the contract pending sign on it, my neighbors didnt care as long as they got what they were asking.
I flew in from up north to look around. My realtor took me to look at over 30 properties in 4 days. Plus, he took me to look at new construction - something I hadn't even considered. Even though I didn't go that route, I learned quite a bit and am glad I at least looked into the possibility. It helped put alot of things into perspective as far as the decision-making process went.
You prove the point. Speed is crucial in a sellers market, if you don't see the property the day is listed and are ready to make an offer then you may be a back up offer the next day. It is impossible for an agent to provide that immediateness to all their customer, so someone is losing out. I agree first time buyer, new to the area, sure there is value there. Since it wasn't my first rodeo and was very familiar with the area for me it was a frustrating experience. I went through 3 agents, the last one finally could tell that i was ready to walk away, and when he couldn't make it he would text me the code of the house, i lost 3 houses including the one that i ended up buying, I called the listing agent and she explained to me that the offer they had was shaky and we put in a back up offer and it came through. What I advised my brother in law who recently bought a house was to just go with the biggest agency, because often they will hear about houses being listed prior to the MLS from another in-house agent and as long as you are offering the asking price, the house hits the market already under contract. The house across the street from me sold the same way, the sign went up with the contract pending sign on it, my neighbors didnt care as long as they got what they were asking.
Not trying to defend the realtor profession but If I were buying, I would always go with a realtor. First it is the cost that is paid by the seller (if you think you save money by not using, think twice..). Second, even with my endless research, there are lots of advantage of having a good realtor who know what they are doing. I just don't see how it is a smart move not to have one even though I researched a lot and consider myself well informed on home buying.
Most people think house buying is easy and there is no need for realtors. I am fine with that. They can try to do it themselves and avoid using one. Remember most are basing this conclusion of their knowledge on one or two transaction they did. But the realtors do this for living and close several homes in a year with that come experience that can't be replaced by reading forums. That's lots of experience.
On the other hand, most may just leave everything on a realtor and don't educate themselve and hope things will come out fine. I prefer to educate myself and use professional that I know they do great. But if I have no idea about it, I won't tell the difference.
Again, if someone thinks they can do a better deal by themselves without a realtor, they should go ahead and do it. If you do this in fact many time, you may even consider having a license and get the comimssion for you too as bentlebee did, if I am correct. It is about a choice. I chose to use a professional that can do excellent job in this case. The same goes on the mortgage. If I spend time and teach myself, I can tell which broker is the best and which is not and what is fair market.
I know there is a real estate forum, but I feel like people from my area might be able to answer my questions better than people from other cities/areas/states.
What is a realtor's job? What a good realtor needs to do for their customers?
I went through 3 realtors so far and I didn't like even one of them (one was a friend, one was a referral and one was chosen based on good online reviews). One was always late, another - always busy, another - didn't really care about our needs regarding new house. I told what I was looking for, and started receiving daily emails with houses that didn't fit my needs...
Every single house we went to look at I found myself and let realtor know I want to look at it. The only benefit was that they were able to unlock the door.... No info regarding HOA or any debts or any background info on the house. They usually ask listing agent, listing agent usually answer "there is no info on that house", so my realtor usually comes back to me with "we don't know anything about that house"... Well, we have a public record system and we can find a lot info there - like a note about house being found vacant few years ago or permit for sinkhole investigation... I assume that type of research is not a realtor's job? The comps the realtor were putting together for me were not impressive. I was doing the same thing by myself by using county appraisal web site...
When we were preparing our offers, we were told that we need to hire an attorney if we have ANY questions regarding the paperwork OUR REALTOR put together for us...
So, what realtors are getting paid for? Thousands of dollars for opening houses (I was told by one realtor that she is willing to show me 10 houses with no charge and after that she will charge me for any additional house) and emailing paperwork seems too much for their job. Again, I might have a bad experience and it's not typical.
Please share with me what your realtors were doing for you when you were selling/buying your houses? Maybe I should look for better realtor or if they are not responsible for doing some researches about houses, maybe I should contact listing agents directly… Maybe I want too much from a realtor?
I had a similar issue with realtors when moving to the USA but the main issues were a little different than yours.
A realtor is taught to tell their clients to have an attorney look over the contract since the real estate law prohibits a realtor from giving any legal advise....even if the realtor is aware of the answer they have to be very careful with giving an answer because a client may sue them later...
A good realtor however will do a "background search" on the property and will provide you with the info about the sales history, mortgage history, etc.
A realtor that has limited time can be a good thing, meaning the person is very busy and unless that realtor doesn't take the time to provide you with the reasonable questions you may have, than it is logical otherwise it is not a "good realtor".
Please understand that some people are asking questions that are not considered spending time on...
On Friday we had a person calling us for a property that is under contract (regular sale) and will close soon (cash deal). We informed the client of that but he lept asking many questios which we answered in a polite way but he kept going and all his questions were regarding walking times to stores (no store within 7-10 min. driving) and the time schedule for the bus. We informed the person about websites that can calculate the walking time since we have no clue, hardly anybody will walk to the nearest Super Target, etc. since there are no sidewalks.....and we don't have a bus schedule....
Keep in mind the property is under contract...and the next day he called again qith the same questions and the person answering the phone was clueless about the call from the same person the day prior!
I'm only trying tobring across that in some cases what is reasonable for one person might not be the normal for someone else...
Having said that...In my opion the level of professional service is still not what it should be and that was the reason we stepped into the business and I got my license and we took over a real estate office, but still it is not easy to bring all common sense over to every agent and sometimes it is frustrating for us too specially dealing with some agents from other offices that neevr call back or never answer an email in decent time frame! Meanwhile we are dealing with a client who is waiting for a answer that we are waiting for as well!
Hopefully the bad ones will leave the business one day but some just have their license in case a family member or their own home has to be sold!
It sounds like you know what you are doing and I applaud you for that....BUT keep in mind that most people are not like you and the money they spend may very well save them more money by avoiding legal issues.
The contract needs to be prepared and of course you can hire a lawyer to do all that but keep in mind you pay a lawyer regardless of the out come...
A realtor only gets paid if the property deal will be closed....no cure no pay and a lawyer will not do every step of the way like a realtor will do.
A good realtor will be worth their money, a bad one not but isn't that the same for any good or bad handyman, lawyer, painter, car repair person, etc.
What is your profession?
Quote:
Originally Posted by BBI
If you're internet savvy, realtors add basically no value. They're a luxury, not a necessity -- if you don't want to do the research yourself, get a realtor; if you don't want to negotiate yourself, get a realtor; etc. But they've tried to create a system to try to perpetuate their profession as some sort of necessity, and most people don't understand how little value they add, so you're pretty much stuck using one.
The easy part of realtor "need" is the MLS database. If you're a buyer, you need access so you know what's out there. Sites like Zillow and Trulia are helpful in a lot of ways (picking neighborhoods, determining home value, etc.), but they're not updated fast enough. Meanwhile, if you're selling a home, you need it on the MLS database so that people can find it. But this is easy. If you're buying, just about every realtor will give you access in exchange for your email address. You'll get some spam from them, but that's well worth it. And, if you're selling, you can find realtors who'll put your home on the MLS for a few hundred bucks. Again, well worth it.
The challenging part of the "need" is when you're a buyer, because most sellers don't understand they don't need a luxury service, and lock themselves into a 6% commission. And the buyer -- who pays for everything -- is stuck footing the bill. But good luck negotiating that rate down if you're a buyer. We approached sellers agents and said "we're not using a realtor, so we want you to take 4%." They uniformly refused; they'd prefer to split the 6% with a buyers' agent and only get 3%. 6% is a sacred cow. So you need a buyers' agent who'll take the 3% and then give most of it back to you at closing (we got 2% back, so we ended up at the 4% we had initially offered).
In time, this 'realtor as standard' practice should die out. The average seller will realize that she doesn't need the luxury service, the 6% guarantee will no longer be standard, and buyers will be free to operate without an agent if they want. But that's got to be driven by sellers, since they're the ones guaranteeing 6%. If you're a seller, paint your house/rooms neutral colors, keep everything clean, pay $300 to get your house on MLS and a sign for out front, and ask somewhere in the neighborhood of the price estimate on zillow. There, now you don't need a realtor. Of course, down here, it'll probably take a little longer for the change to complete. We have a lot of people who need/want the luxury service because they're too old to understand how to use the internet, because they're far away and can't handle the transaction remotely, etc.
It sounds like you know what you are doing and I applaud you for that....BUT keep in mind that most people are not like you and the money they spend may very well save them more money by avoiding legal issues.
The contract needs to be prepared and of course you can hire a lawyer to do all that but keep in mind you pay a lawyer regardless of the out come...
A realtor only gets paid if the property deal will be closed....no cure no pay and a lawyer will not do every step of the way like a realtor will do.
A good realtor will be worth their money, a bad one not but isn't that the same for any good or bad handyman, lawyer, painter, car repair person, etc.
What is your profession?
The contract is a boilerplate, you can't really call it drafting a legal document.
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