Redfin/Discount Buyer's Agent Recommendations/Experiences? (Fairfax: for sale, real estate, foreclosures)

[aheadofthecurve]

Hi Everyone,

I am in the market for a new home and understandably I would like to save money by not having to pay a full buyer's agent commission. I do extensive research online and I already know pretty much what I want. I am almost at the point where I am ready to put in an offer, but I do not currently have a buyer's agent and I do not want the sellers agent to get 6%, esp. after I have done all the work. I find the hard part is to determine the proper offer price in this market, which seems to be full of uncertainty. This has let me to consider redfin, which offers a rebate. Has anyone had any good/bad experiences with redfin? Also, does anyone have any recommendations for buyer's agents that would be willing to offer a rebate? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

PS
I find myself asking how much the market will fall (in the north arlington/mclean area) in the next few months and the longer term. Any thoughts? I think a lot of buyers must be sitting back and waiting to see what happens, although rates are getting really low.

[Flamingo13]

I'm a little confused - doesn't the seller's agent get paid by the seller? In that case, it's up to the seller to have an agent with a rate that they are happy with. You as a buyer can bid any price you wish (never heard of redfin).

[eyeball]

If you're looking at redfin, you may as well look at iagent too (better rebates). Concerning whether or not prices will continue to fall, if you see something you like now, it's probably a better idea to try to get it now than to trying to time the market.

[Margery]

Originally Posted by aheadofthecurve

Hi Everyone,

I am in the market for a new home and understandably I would like to save money by not having to pay a full buyer's agent commission. I do extensive research online and I already know pretty much what I want. I am almost at the point where I am ready to put in an offer, but I do not currently have a buyer's agent and I do not want the sellers agent to get 6%, esp. after I have done all the work. I find the hard part is to determine the proper offer price in this market, which seems to be full of uncertainty. This has let me to consider redfin, which offers a rebate. Has anyone had any good/bad experiences with redfin? Also, does anyone have any recommendations for buyer's agents that would be willing to offer a rebate? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

PS
I find myself asking how much the market will fall (in the north arlington/mclean area) in the next few months and the longer term. Any thoughts? I think a lot of buyers must be sitting back and waiting to see what happens, although rates are getting really low.

First of all, what the seller's agent gets is between the seller and the agent (actually the agent's broker) and you cannot interfere with that contractual agreement. If you hope to get a better price because there is no buyer agent to be paid, it may not happen. You have said you find it hard to determine the proper price in this market. A buyer agent who is familiar with the local market can help you with that. An online agent who has never seen the house would have a hard time determining a fair price to offer. This is an important purchase, don't try to do it alone unless you have prior experience in buying a house. As far as sitting back, buyers are starting to get active. These interest rates are too good to pass up.

[wickednoodle]

Originally Posted by eyeball

If you're looking at redfin, you may as well look at iagent too (better rebates). Concerning whether or not prices will continue to fall, if you see something you like now, it's probably a better idea to try to get it now than to trying to time the market.

We just purchased a home in Aldie through i-agent and found it to be a great experience. We simply provided the agent a list of the homes we wanted to see on a particular day and he took us through them the same way a "regular" agent would. The home we purchased was a foreclosure, and our agent was very familiar with this process and was a great help along the way. He was always available to us through phone calls/emails and was quick to get back to us. The only differences we found in the process were that we had to provide the list of homes that we wanted to see (which we typically do anyway since we do our own internet research), and my husband was the one present during home inspections, etc. We never asked our agent to be present during those times, however, so he very well may have been willing to be there if we had felt it was necessary.

Please feel free to pm me with more questions. It was great getting a nice fat check back after the process was over!

ps. We chose to go with i-agent vs. redfin because redfin does not handle foreclosures (even though they list them on their site). At the time, we didn't know if we would go with a foreclosure or not, but with the vast amount of them in this area we thought the probability was high that we would. I was a bit concerned since I'd never purchased a foreclosure before and I'd heard they could be a bit of a nightmare to purchase, but we had zero issues and found it to be a pleasant experience. We actually closed in under thirty days!

[barryhussein]

Redfin will work for higher priced homes, but they do have minimums. If your looking in the 50-200K range, you may want to consider Homes for Sale, MLS Listings Search, Real Estate Agents -- Zip Realty. They have an excellent "search by school district" function.

[Skapov]

We used ZIP REALTY, where you get a rebate of 20% of the Buyer's Agent Commision (ie. on a home that sells for $400,000 you would get $2,400). The agents are knowledgeable and communicate promptly, and their website is by far the most user-friendly of all the online realtors.

Good Luck!

Oh, and I wouldn't sit on the sidelines waiting for "the bottom", as I believe you can only know those things in hindsight, when it's too late. There are many wonderful deals in Fairfax County currently, and once the weather warms up I believe the market will begin to pick up.