Realtor Question!! (Austin, Round Rock, Howe: crime rates, mortgage, houses)

[sjd]

My wife and I are considering relocating and don't know the area. We plan on visiting and finding which area looks nice. However, how do you find a Realtor to guide us in the right direction since it looks like areas are 20 miles from each other. And as most of you know, each neighborhood has its good and bad parts and good and not so good streets and desirable and less desirable areas within each neighborhood. So, do we find the area we like and find a Realtor who speciailizes in that area? What if we like 2 areas, but they are 20 miles apart? Do we use one Realtor for one area and one for the other area? Is that fair to the Realtors? Please let me know how the Realtors expect to deal with this situation? I want to be fair to the Realtor, but the most important part is to take care of my family. Any suggestions on how this is handled?

[CREED0207]

I am getting ready to relocate to ft benning ga and need any info about the area that anybody can provide please. I have a son and I need to find a safe place for us to be.

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by CREED0207

I am getting ready to relocate to ft benning ga and need any info about the area that anybody can provide please. I have a son and I need to find a safe place for us to be.

This is the Austin, TX board, you need to post on Georgia's board to get the information you seek.

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by sjd

My wife and I are considering relocating and don't know the area. We plan on visiting and finding which area looks nice. However, how do you find a Realtor to guide us in the right direction since it looks like areas are 20 miles from each other. And as most of you know, each neighborhood has its good and bad parts and good and not so good streets and desirable and less desirable areas within each neighborhood. So, do we find the area we like and find a Realtor who speciailizes in that area? What if we like 2 areas, but they are 20 miles apart? Do we use one Realtor for one area and one for the other area? Is that fair to the Realtors? Please let me know how the Realtors expect to deal with this situation? I want to be fair to the Realtor, but the most important part is to take care of my family. Any suggestions on how this is handled?

We had a realtor that took us all over creation. First, if you have friends here, ask for a recommendation. If you don't have that then people on this board are really good at offering up suggestions but they need to do it over direct mail.

If you are serious about buying, a realtor is not going to be put off by the travel. One day you will check out homes in one area (say south) and the next day you check out houses up in Round Rock or Northwest, etc.

[TheyCallMeDerek]

1 Realtor can help you with all areas in their MLS. Because of the data in the MLS and information on each individual property they can give all info and stats you and your family would need. Most importantly, you need to know exactly what you want and have had spoken to a mortgage professional. Good luck with your search!

[sjd]

Originally Posted by Jennibc

We had a realtor that took us all over creation. First, if you have friends here, ask for a recommendation. If you don't have that then people on this board are really good at offering up suggestions but they need to do it over direct mail.

If you are serious about buying, a realtor is not going to be put off by the travel. One day you will check out homes in one area (say south) and the next day you check out houses up in Round Rock or Northwest, etc.

I am not worried about makiing the realtor drive all over the place, but it does me no good if I have a realtor who doesn't know the area and specialize in it to show me around. If they don't specialize in a given area, then they won't be able to tell me the best places within the area. And I find it very difficult to believe that an agent is going to know round rock as well as know falconhead, westlake, rollingwood, steiner ranch and lakeway. No Realtor is that good.

[sjd]

Originally Posted by CallDerek

1 Realtor can help you with all areas in their MLS. Because of the data in the MLS and information on each individual property they can give all info and stats you and your family would need. Most importantly, you need to know exactly what you want and have had spoken to a mortgage professional. Good luck with your search!

I understand that the MLS has all the information, but what the Realtor won't know if what streets to stay away from, which neighborhoods to skip, things like that. The MLS won't tell them that if they don't already know the area very well. If the Realtor doesn't really know the area, they could tell me that the home I want is in neighborhood "x" because it matches everything I want, but they couldn't tell me that this particular neighborhood has re-sale problems or this particular street has lots of traffic, or this street is good, but across the street is not so good.

[Jennibc]

Originally Posted by sjd

I am not worried about makiing the realtor drive all over the place, but it does me no good if I have a realtor who doesn't know the area and specialize in it to show me around. If they don't specialize in a given area, then they won't be able to tell me the best places within the area. And I find it very difficult to believe that an agent is going to know round rock as well as know falconhead, westlake, rollingwood, steiner ranch and lakeway. No Realtor is that good.

Well, it's not like Austin is a huge city. And if you find one that's been doing it a couple of decades and stays on top of things, you can find one that knows enough. I bought in Circle C but my realtor "specialized" in NW Austin. Circle C is SW and she did a fine job of helping us find a home after we decided that we'd prefer to live Southwest rather than Northwest.

[Jennibc]

What do you mean by which neighborhoods to skip? As in terms of resale? Crime rates? Schools?

[sjd]

Originally Posted by Jennibc

What do you mean by which neighborhoods to skip? As in terms of resale? Crime rates? Schools?

yes to all of those. Where I live, there are certina pockets that are much better than other pockets. And one would only know that if they are very familiar with the area. You said that Austin is not a big city but there is about a 25 mile radius of homes and neighborhoods. That seems pretty large to me.