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Status:
"I don't understand. But I don't care, so it works out."
(set 10 days ago)
35,635 posts, read 17,982,736 times
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OP, your post above indicates your problem. You're not willing to pay market value, and your realtor has learned that. Houses that are priced the way you are willing to pay sell immediately, and you don't know what they finally sell for - likely above the price asked, as your experience proved on two houses you put in an offer on. Your offer wasn't high enough in either case when you made an offer.
In a hot market, it will be very hard to have a realtor represent you long term when you are trying to buy a house below market value.
1. He have missed out on seeing at least 15 different houses by now, due to her not responding in time. Yesterday alone we missed out on 2.
2. She is a full time experienced agent, so I'm maybe thinking our money isn't good enough? I mean, she's selling $500k+ houses, so maybe the commission on a $350k house is not appealing enough to her.
3. She set us up on the automatic MLS emails, but I generally see the houses pop up on Zillow or Redfin before I get an email. This also influences why I think she isn't doing her job. Not once has she found a house specifically to show us. I understand as buyers, we do the heavy lifting, but I sort of expected the realtor to be more involved in the process.
4. Some houses do show the coming soon. However, the great majority of those are foreclosures. I will see if I can find a way to look at non-foreclosures waiting to be listed. Thank you for this recommendation!
Still not really enough info to go off of. For the 15 houses, was it 24 hours before she replied to you or 24 hours from contact that she could schedule a showing. That's a lot. Of those 15 houses, take an offer first day and none of them wait for other offers?
2-Not likely the case.
3-That's not on her. Zillow and Redfin feed from MLS, so not sure how the emails from MLS aren't getting to you sooner. If it is the case, then that will be a problem for the MLS and all agents in your market, not just your current one.
4-Some markets don't allow coming soon marketing.
You could always give another agent a test run if you aren't bound by a contract to your first agent.
I suspect you are not paying her 3% of the purchase price. It will be the seller’s agent who pays any other agent who brings the actual buyer. That seller’s agent doesn’t care in theory which agent brings the buyer as long as he gets the best contract for his client.
In a hot market I’m guessing it helps to have a long term agent with lots of connections and a good reputation for smooth closings. And you need to convince that agent you are worth their priority. They may have other clients who have also been looking desperately even longer than you. Tough times to be a normal buyer.
Talk to your hubby about this, but you are NOT wrong to want a buyer's agent who answers the phone when you call and responds quickly.
In a hot market, your agent should answer the phone and be able to look up the house, confirm it's a good fit, and get an appt. set or at least put in the request while you talk. That's what I call responsive.
If she doesn't answer when you call, she should respond with a text that she will be available in ____ hours and you should text the details for her to act on in the mean-time. Maybe sometimes she's with a client and can't pick up, but if she doesn't answer the phone most of the time when you call... then she's too busy to take on another client.
It doesn't matter if you're spending $100K or $1000K. A client deserves good customer service. I don't accept excuses from agents who are never away from their phones but never answer them.
OP, your post above indicates your problem. You're not willing to pay market value, and your realtor has learned that. Houses that are priced the way you are willing to pay sell immediately, and you don't know what they finally sell for - likely above the price asked, as your experience proved on two houses you put in an offer on. Your offer wasn't high enough in either case when you made an offer.
In a hot market, it will be very hard to have a realtor represent you long term when you are trying to buy a house below market value.
We are not making offers below market value. Most houses are actually overpriced based on comps, but we understand that is the market, and are willing to match the listing prices. The two offers that we have put in throughout our search have been unsuccessful. The first house we walked away from was listed for $408k, we offered $400k and they stayed at $408k. That house hasn't closed yet, so no info on how much they ended up getting as of yet. The second house we offered on got taken from us by a cash offer. It had been a flip, so the shorter closing time attracted the seller more, even though the offers were for the same amount of money, about $6k above asking price (as confirmed by both the seller's agent, and public records now that the sale has closed).
I suspect you are not paying her 3% of the purchase price. It will be the seller’s agent who pays any other agent who brings the actual buyer.
We've been around the "who pays the realtor" tree many times.
Truth is the fee is set by the seller, but the buyer writes the checks. It doesn't really matter. Either way, people deserve good customer service from their agents.
Still not really enough info to go off of. For the 15 houses, was it 24 hours before she replied to you or 24 hours from contact that she could schedule a showing. That's a lot. Of those 15 houses, take an offer first day and none of them wait for other offers?
2-Not likely the case.
3-That's not on her. Zillow and Redfin feed from MLS, so not sure how the emails from MLS aren't getting to you sooner. If it is the case, then that will be a problem for the MLS and all agents in your market, not just your current one.
4-Some markets don't allow coming soon marketing.
You could always give another agent a test run if you aren't bound by a contract to your first agent.
Her response time depends on when I reach out. If I contact her before noon, we get an answer around 6-7PM. Anytime time I try to contact her after noon means we don't hear back from her until the following morning.
Yes, most houses are getting multiple offers the same day they are listed. The latest one we missed out on was listed yesterday at 10:30AM. By 10:30PM, it was already under contract. I contacted our realtor to see the house at 2PM. Her answer was that she couldn't show before today at 7PM. That obviously didn't work out.
My issue is not having to look for listings myself. I have no trouble doing that, and have had lots of success finding the new houses within 2-3 hours of listing. I check several times a day, so really, that's not the problem. The problem is what comes after finding a listing I like...the scheduling of the viewing.
I'm leaning towards having a conversation with her about the difference in our sense of urgency, and giving her one more chance if she is willing to be more responsive when it comes to responding to our request to view houses. If it still doesn't work out, then I could try looking for another agent. Luckily we aren't bound by contract to her.
Yes, most buyers who are as eager as you are, do see listings before we do... because for you, looking for houses has become your major hobby! I get it!
So buyers often see things before I've had time to sit down and look at today's new listings and approve them or not (I never set them to go out automatically) but that's OK... Agent should be able to answer the phone and get on the schedule - that's the important thing.
Her response time depends on when I reach out. If I contact her before noon, we get an answer around 6-7PM. Anytime time I try to contact her after noon means we don't hear back from her until the following morning.
Yes, most houses are getting multiple offers the same day they are listed. The latest one we missed out on was listed yesterday at 10:30AM. By 10:30PM, it was already under contract. I contacted our realtor to see the house at 2PM. Her answer was that she couldn't show before today at 7PM. That obviously didn't work out.
My issue is not having to look for listings myself. I have no trouble doing that, and have had lots of success finding the new houses within 2-3 hours of listing. I check several times a day, so really, that's not the problem. The problem is what comes after finding a listing I like...the scheduling of the viewing.
I'm leaning towards having a conversation with her about the difference in our sense of urgency, and giving her one more chance if she is willing to be more responsive when it comes to responding to our request to view houses. If it still doesn't work out, then I could try looking for another agent. Luckily we aren't bound by contract to her.
You'll need to look for listings yourself. Agents, especially if busy, don't sit around periodically checking MLS for new listings. That's why we have the automated search, so buyers get immediate notice. You won't get different service from an agent, and if someone tells you they'll pro-actively, daily sit around and browse MLS for you, they are either a liar or not very busy and I'd avoid both.
Yes, the agent should be better at answering or returning calls and scheduling showings. I think it's fair to have that conversation and if she can't fix it replace her.
We've been around the "who pays the realtor" tree many times.
Truth is the fee is set by the seller, but the buyer writes the checks. It doesn't really matter. Either way, people deserve good customer service from their agents.
That wasn’t meant to be the main thrust of the comment. Rather, that the listing agent is in charge of the whole situation anyway.
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