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Call a well established office, and ask for the name of their 2 longest established agents. Ones that have been in the business to really know what they are doing.
Arrange to meet them at their office, and let them counsel with you. Tell them the type of criteria that is important to you. Type of schools needed, size, and let them figure out what you can really afford and will be able to get financed. Talk about the type of home you want and any things you want near by. Let them find out what you really want in a home, and ask them if they can find you such a home at the price you can afford.
They may tell you that what you want, is out of your price range, etc. They may tell you you will have to lower your requirements to be able to qualify for a loan. Let them weed out anything you really cannot buy for two reasons. Don't just rush out and look at homes you would dream about, as it will make it harder to accept what you can afford to buy. You may in some situations, find that you can actually afford a nicer home than you were first considering. Do it in the office, and only go look at homes that actually fit your needs and ability to purchase. If you give them enough information to work on, it is surprising how nice a home they will be able to show you. It would not be as attractive if you ran out and just started looking at homes as most agents want to do. It is bad to find a dream home, and not be able to afford it. You will never able to look at the home you can afford and really be satisfied.
An hour talking in the office, is better than a week driving around with an agent that is a frustrated tour bus driver, and just shows home after home after home till you give up and buy something.
I am speaking as someone that was an investment specialist broker, from 1972 till I retired. Let me discuss the real estate business and Realtors.
1: Eighty Seven Percent of all real estate agents that enter the business, will fail out of the business. That leaves only 13% of agents that enter the business ones that are successful.
2: The majority of agents that enter the business, are not really knowledgeable of what is needed to be successful. They in my opinion and the majority of other successful agents, not qualified to do the job.
I spent the year before entering the business, taking university courses on real estate, and some private courses. I learned the business before I ever went into it. Just being able to pass the entry exam, does not qualify you to sell real estate. Most work under the assumption if you can get a prospect into your car, and show them enough houses they will find the one they want and you will have a sale. You hear of buyers that have worked with an agent looking at homes for a week, before they selected the home they want to buy. If you show a prospect more than 3 homes before they buy, it indicates you don't know what you are doing. In any market there will actually be 3 homes that the prospect will consider. By pre- counseling the client before you show the first property you will know exactly what their dream home is, and you will be able to eliminate the majority of showings.
I had almost 20 years successful years as a professional salesman, working as high as division sales manager for an old time company, prior to going into the business, which I was able to put to work in the RE business.
My first day in the business, I sold a 2 year old apartment house. My 4th day in the business, I sold the identical one next door to my first sale. Second work week, I exchanged a 16 unit 4 year old apartment house, for the down payment on a fairly large irrigated farm. I did more dollar volume those first 2 weeks, than all but the best agents do in a year. Twenty years sales experience, and one year taking numerous specialized courses is the reason I was able to do this. From there, I was off and running. I was different in the way I worked, and acted more like a portfolio manager of investors accounts, buying, selling, and exchanging real estate for them time after time.
I averaged 1 1/2 showings to sale, for all the time I was in the business. I only had one sale, that did not close. It was part of a 4 property exchange with 4 different buyers involved. Nice property on a street overlooking a nice lake, business property with 1/2 flight down to a garden level and 1/2 flight up to the other offices. Real nice. There was another entry to apartments above. It was owned by a Realtor that was going to move back to her birth place in London England after doing the closing. Before closing doing my due diligence checking, I found that the property was in a newly created flood zone, and the lower floor that was not rented, was not as the owner claimed left vacant for a new owner to choose their own clients, but had been put in a flood zone, and bottom floor could not be used for offices which was why it was vacant. Without that floor to rent, the property was worth less than the mortgage. When I cancelled that contract based on fraud, the owner just abandoned the building, sent the keys to the mortgage company and fled the USA.
One problem is, 90% of the agents would not have done the check I did, and would have sold the property to an unsuspecting buyer, who would end up suing the selling office and agent due to the heavy misrepresentation. They could not sue the seller, a she had fled the country and was untouchable.
As I see the complaints of people on the Real Estate threads, and the complaints and unhappiness they have against Realtors, I feel sorry for them. The problem was, the agents so often did not know what they were doing, as they had not been properly trained to do the job, and that agent would be one of those agents that was working their way out of the business, when they ran out of money and had to get another job.
Given what you write here, especially the the bolded (and your attitude based on some of the other stuff you have posted on other threads), you would not be a good agent for me and if we had the misfortune of trying I would probably drop you and/or talk trash about you. You would irk me and we would probably start to dislike each other pretty darn quick. I don't want someone picking out a house for me and, with it being such a large purchase, I want to look at enough homes to know I am purchasing the right one, even if I do end up purchasing the first one. Sometimes the problem isn't that there is something wrong with the agent, rather it is that the agent and client are not a good match.
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My best friend was a realtor. We became friends after we bought our house from her. We traveled the globe with our spouses and spent a lot of holidays together. Her alcohol abuse became so bad that it was effecting our friendship. She also sold us a house full of termites that supposedly passed a termite inspection. The house had a current contract that could have transferred over to us for a few dollars vs the 2k we had to spend to get the house properly treated. The termites were in the garage and it was never treated. Well that was it. The final nail in the coffin of that train wreck friendship. I never spoke to her again and she died about two years later.
That doesn't sour me on realtors, although I just look at them as a business partner now. We have a local realtor that opened up a mom and pop ice cream parlor down the street. I both love and hate him. His cheese pop corn is to die for and those waffle cones with the sprinkles? Kill me now. Would I hire him to sell our house? Yes, but there will be a clause that includes free pop corn for every open house
First, I agree that calling FSBO's or Expired brings out the worst in most agents. I think they aren't aware that they come off as sleazeballs in their approach tactics.
That being said, it does sound like your transaction experience has been good for the most part. There are some good agents, mostly average agents, and some bad agents. You'll get more expired calls from bad and new average agents that are learning the ropes but are desperate for business. This a small segment of the total agent population out there. They don't do the industry perception any favors but don't base your opinion of agents on them.
Given what you write here, especially the the bolded (and your attitude based on some of the other stuff you have posted on other threads), you would not be a good agent for me and if we had the misfortune of trying I would probably drop you and/or talk trash about you. You would irk me and we would probably start to dislike each other pretty darn quick. I don't want someone picking out a house for me and, with it being such a large purchase, I want to look at enough homes to know I am purchasing the right one, even if I do end up purchasing the first one. Sometimes the problem isn't that there is something wrong with the agent, rather it is that the agent and client are not a good match.
I think you could miss out on a better way. If you don't have requirements then maybe the only way is to drive around, but if you know what you want and what you can afford then letting the realtor narrow it down could make a lot of sense. No need to trash talk anyone even if his style is not a good fit.
Our recent sales and subsequent purchase transactions have me comparing and contrasting the two. We sold our house as a FSBO and it was the most pleasant, transparent experience with both sides sitting down at the table over coffee to create a win-win situation. For our recent purchase, we used a highly recommended realtor and it has been a hair-pulling, aggravating experience including spotty communication, disappearing acts (unannounced 2 wk vacation), oops paperwork and the most ridiculous part - we found the the two houses we had under consideration on our own. I think it might be that realtors who have been in the game a long time or have other means of support, don't have the motivation to follow through on a lot of their promises.
Interesting take. Unfortunately most consumers don't have enough experience to actually tell a good agent from a bad agent. That's why so many online reviews and personal referrals only help eliminate some bad agents. Likewise, sometimes a good agent gets blamed for events out of their control. Nothing beats compiling a list and interviewing multiple agents.
I think you could miss out on a better way. If you don't have requirements then maybe the only way is to drive around, but if you know what you want and what you can afford then letting the realtor narrow it down could make a lot of sense. No need to trash talk anyone even if his style is not a good fit.
No, it definitely would not be a better way for me, although it might work for you. A home is an emotional purchase in additional to a financial purchase for many, and someone who thinks a real estate agent who shows more than 3 homes is incompetent is not likely to be very patient with buyers who want to compare many homes to find the one that fits them best. Sure there are basic requirements, but when your requiremts are 3+ bedrooms, 2+ baths, between $425-750K, not less than 2000 sq ft., and within a less than 45 minute average commute in a high density, high population area all while many things were desirable but negotiable, which is what we were looking for last time we purchased, a real estate agent who would start out by only offering to show me 3 properties, especially only at the top of my price range, is not okay. Most buyers have trade offs they are willing to consider depending on the house. What sold us on our current house, even though it didn't have the large windowed laundry room I wanted over the runner up that did have it, was the neighbors next door, something an agent would have no way of gauging. These days buyers are capable of doing the narrowing down themselves of what they don't want to see.
Reality is not House Hunters and I do not have a single friend or relative who only looked at 3 homes before they decided which to buy. Yes, I would not be satisfied with an agent who only offered to take me to three homes, and I would trash him if he acted annoyed when I wanted to see more than just those 3 homes he hand-selected for me.
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Around here I have noticed those that are in it for a career and those that are in it to make a quick buck. The quick buck kind walk away when the market has a down turn. We were close to a family that has their own agency. When the market was on the rise you would see their signs all over the place, they opened additional offices. When the market declined they vanished.
One local area long time realtor mentioned that he had a business plan for every type of market locally. When things were bad he could make money, when things were good he made money. He also mentioned to me that when things were good everyone jumped in splitting the big paydays between lots of people.
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Lol...
