real estate agents

[Pace500]

This actually made me remember a story from about 14 years ago. I was actually screamed on by my second RE agent. My first RE agent never called me back after showing me 3 rentals. And I ended up running into her when selling my condo, she brought a client over. Makes me think about the big picture...maybe sometimes they are just too busy.

But here is the crazy situation. When selling my Condo, there was someone that was fairly well known in the area. After calling her and letting her know I wanted to sell my Condo...I went to the agents business and it turns out she is the owner of the firm, so she gave me to a newer agent to review and sign the contract. I negotiated a lower fee. I dont remember exactly but lets say 3% versus 4%. Sign off and all done...so I thought. When the owner found out she ended up sending the new agent to my condo with a sob story about they cannot do it at 3%...after we both signed. So whatever I do the 4% as I really needed the condo to sell. I did feel a little burned.

A week later I get a call from the agent owner about scheduling a client to look at the condo (she asked if I could be there to let the person in, as they were in the area without her) and I couldnt as I told her I was looking at a house (condo was in Queens, houses were in Nassau) and then wow she freaked out on me. I was screamed on. I am trying not to use names, but the agent owner was screaming at me saying I shouldve told her I was looking for a house. My only thoughts were honestly, I didnt know she could do Nassau County. I am in sales and I have a territory, thought it was the same thing. She was just ripping me a new one to the point of - I was telling her to take it easy. She basically was saying that I am screwing her out of potential commission.

I ended up only using her to sell my Condo. I was really burned by the negotiation process on her end. Never looked back though. I really - I always thought to myself, she never asked me why I was selling my condo. She wouldve known very early in process. I really did like her...of course until she berated me. All in all she lost 4 of my deals and many referrals.

[RW517]

Originally Posted by 85dumbo

But I think I won the bid to my house because I didn't use a buying agent and the selling agent probably pushed my bid to the seller since they get full commission.

I 100% agree with this. We used a buyers agent for 6 months when we were first looking. Most of the time I was sending her homes we wanted to look at, not the other way around. Also, she tried to push us out of the neighborhood we wanted to be in to a neighborhood further east. We told her no a few times, but she persisted.

We found our home a few weeks after the agreement lapsed. I'm sure that double commission made our offer much more attractive.

I don't know what a buyers agent does that a buyer can't do on their own. If anyone of the RE agents on here have insight, I'd love to hear it.

[markjames68]

Originally Posted by RW517

I 100% agree with this. We used a buyers agent for 6 months when we were first looking. Most of the time I was sending her homes we wanted to look at, not the other way around. Also, she tried to push us out of the neighborhood we wanted to be in to a neighborhood further east. We told her no a few times, but she persisted.

We found our home a few weeks after the agreement lapsed. I'm sure that double commission made our offer much more attractive.

I don't know what a buyers agent does that a buyer can't do on their own. If anyone of the RE agents on here have insight, I'd love to hear it.

One advantage I can think of is if a house is about to go on the market (but hasn't yet) and it fits your criteria. Not sure otherwise how you'd find out about these.

The other in my experience was when my agent was able to work with the other agent to negotiate a better deal or to help push the deal through.

[BBCjunkie]

Originally Posted by RW517

I don't know what a buyers agent does that a buyer can't do on their own. If anyone of the RE agents on here have insight, I'd love to hear it.

One thing they can do (if willing) is to email you (their client) the "Stratus" version of the listing. This contains -- or did contain, if MLSLI has changed their system and no longer uses these -- some information that isn't visible in the public/internet listing. For example, what the commission splits are and if there are any realtors-only open houses scheduled. [Some realtors won't share the Stratus with clients, btw]

Back in the day (and maybe to some extent nowadays) realtors used to really push sellers to let them have an Office Exclusive rather than putting the listing immediately onto MLS. Even if it's "just for a week or two" rather than the entire listing term. Today's sellers are much less likely to go that route because they know buyers are cruising the internet looking for new listings on a daily basis; the odds of them going to THAT particular broker's company web site, rather than Zillow, Estately, MLSLI.com, etc etc are pretty slim. Having a buyer agent doesn't help with getting into Office Exclusives because every agent in that listing office is going to be calling their customers and clients about that listing anyhow, whether there's a buyer agreement in place or not. And they certainly won't know about any competing office's Exclusives.

When I was using the buyer agent, I think there were maybe TWO new listings that she alerted me to (by emailing me a copy of the Stratus) before I'd already seen it online ... and we are talking about a search timespan of several years. I was checking MLSLI numerous times a day during that period, starting at about 7 a.m. She finally internalized the fact that if I hadn't yet contacted her to ask to see a house, that meant I'd already seen the listing online and discounted it for whatever reason(s.) Any listings that I asked her to set up a showing for, had already survived a Google Maps check of the surroundings AND an-person drive-by within the first few hours of my finding the new online listing. Frankly, she did very little to earn her commission check.