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Old 12-16-2011, 12:53 PM
 
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I've seen this advice given at least once here . . . but I'm not sure if I understood it properly.

We have found and started communicating with realtor who is very knowledgable of the Cary/Apex area. We also want to consider Durham and perhaps Raleigh, as there are parts of each of these places that might suit us well. Is there a conflict if we use a different realtor to help us explore Durham/Durham homes? We have not signed anything with any realtor yet. We have not visited any homes with any realtor. We are just starting.

I'm just trying to get some clarity on this, since the contract we would be signing with our current realtor seems to indicate that it would have to be an exclusive deal.

Thanks.
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Old 12-16-2011, 01:00 PM
 
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The realtor we used specializes in Wake Forest/North Raleigh but most of the houses we looked at ended up being in Cary and Durham. Despite this, she still was amazing with the amount of research she would put into houses and their neighborhoods when it looked like we were honing in on certain ones. She definitely went above and beyond what we were expecting. I think that any good realtor should be able to work with you on finding a home in any area, not just the one they're most familiar with.

I would maybe go look at one or two homes outside of this realtor's usual zone and see what kind of vibe you get from them while looking at those homes. That would be a good indicator I think.
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Old 12-16-2011, 01:12 PM
 
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One of the best reasons to work with a real estate agent is to take advantage of their deep knowledge of local issues and trends. The best of them know what's on the drawing board developoment wise that might have an impact on property you are considering. I personally think it's difficult for a real estate agent to have that knowledge over too broad an area - someone who knows Cary extremely well, for example, is not likely to know Durham equally as well.
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Old 12-16-2011, 01:22 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CHTransplant View Post
One of the best reasons to work with a real estate agent is to take advantage of their deep knowledge of local issues and trends. The best of them know what's on the drawing board developoment wise that might have an impact on property you are considering. I personally think it's difficult for a real estate agent to have that knowledge over too broad an area - someone who knows Cary extremely well, for example, is not likely to know Durham equally as well.

This is my feeling as well.
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Old 12-16-2011, 01:24 PM
 
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At the same time though, if you're not concentrating your search to one area, good luck finding a realtor that knows everything about everything I think it's just as important to have one that can do the research legwork for you in cases where they're not as familiar. Also, if they're working for a firm, they should have others in their office specialized in other areas that can assist as well. I know our realtor did that a few times for questions we had.
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Old 12-16-2011, 01:26 PM
 
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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I wouldn't sign on with a realtor too soon. Call different realtors in different areas and ask them to show you around. Once you zero in on a location, find the best realtor for that town/neighborhood. I agree that it's worth it to have someone who is VERY knowledgeable about the town/neighborhood that you are looking in.
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Old 12-16-2011, 01:55 PM
WDJ
 
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We initially started out with a realtor who knew N. Raleigh, Cary, and Apex pretty well. She was good, but when we decided that Durham was a bit more convenient for us, she was reluctant to show us homes over there and really displayed her ignorance about Durham. She kept on saying things like not wanting to go over there w/o some sort of protection against crime. So, we ended up calling a different realtor who specialized in the area we were interested in, and he really knew Durham well. We still did some searching with the first realtor, but we ended up finding the house we wanted and bought through the second one.

For both realtors, we actually did not sign with either one of them, as both of them did not ask us to be locked in.
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Old 12-16-2011, 02:04 PM
 
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Hi we have a buyers agent who is so wonderful!! While I feel he is the most knowledgeable about the areas closer the North of Raleigh and Wake Forest we really were confused about where we liked and have pretty much settled on Clayton/Garner- I will work in Cary so he educated us on that area as well.... He has been so patient in showing us all our options and sharing information. If he doesn't know exactly, he finds out what we wanted to know plus so much more that we hadn't even considered. I don't know if I would be able to transition from out of state without him. We started with someone else and there is no comparison. Seriously we have dragged this poor man all over the Triangle! If you want, PM me and I'll give you his contact info.
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Old 12-16-2011, 02:36 PM
 
Location: under the beautiful Carolina blue
22,654 posts, read 36,662,452 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CHTransplant View Post
One of the best reasons to work with a real estate agent is to take advantage of their deep knowledge of local issues and trends. The best of them know what's on the drawing board developoment wise that might have an impact on property you are considering. I personally think it's difficult for a real estate agent to have that knowledge over too broad an area - someone who knows Cary extremely well, for example, is not likely to know Durham equally as well.
I agree. Our realtor lived in Cary and wasn't even that familiar with the area we wanted to look in. It's big, spread out area, and Cary and Durham are two completely different animals. You might be OK with someone who grew up here and is very, very familiar with all the areas, but even then....I grew up on Long Island and wouldn't claim to be familiar with the whole entire Island.
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Old 12-16-2011, 04:52 PM
 
1,832 posts, read 5,082,649 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CHTransplant View Post
One of the best reasons to work with a real estate agent is to take advantage of their deep knowledge of local issues and trends. The best of them know what's on the drawing board developoment wise that might have an impact on property you are considering. I personally think it's difficult for a real estate agent to have that knowledge over too broad an area - someone who knows Cary extremely well, for example, is not likely to know Durham equally as well.

I agree. Another option is to ask your realtor if he/she has a colleague that can show you areas that he/she doesn't know as well. Perhaps there's a team that can help. I don't know if realtors are open to this. Or perhaps an initial contact realtor can show you the various areas, and be open to calling a colleague in an area for advice if it's too far afield of his/her area.

Even if the initial contact realtor didn't get your sale, he/she would still get a referral fee. Perhaps they'd even split the commission if they worked together. Some offices are run independently in different towns but they can still work well together.

Last edited by Green Irish Eyes; 12-16-2011 at 07:20 PM..
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