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I give that poor realtor kudos for staying on top of replying to your queries at this point. Considering you have been pestering her for YEARS.
You need to approach her, nicely, and express that you are actually serious now. Assuming that you ARE actually serious about buying.
Right on all counts.
I work often with folks who want to buy but are not ready to make a decision.
We cool off a little while I take care of clients who are more prepared to buy.
Every now and then they resurface, say, "Now we are ready," and we get down to business.
Take a copy of your preapproval to the agent.
Tell her again, clearly, what you want, and what your budget is.
Hopefully your budget and your desires share some realm in reality.
Tell her you are ready to buy, and need to search in earnest.
Or, if none of that is true, leave the status quo as is.
What is lost?
We have been browsing the market to buy a home for a couple years now and have been receiving help from an agent.
Need unbiased views on this matter.
Wow, and I feel bad because I've been working with my agent for 4 months! My buyer's agent has shown me 5 properties. I have made offers (on paper with signature) on 3 properties. The last property, my offer was ABOVE the asking price. My agent understands that I pick the properties I want to see and that I'm very serious about each property I view.
How many properties has this agent shown you?
How many offers (if any) have you made with this agent on paper?
How serious are you about buying anything?
Personally, I think this agent is trying to ditch you! Or at least not waste any more time with you.
Agents are not here to provide free tours of homes with their SupraKeys.
If you have been shopping for a "couple of years" you have no timeline for which to buy your next property.
English is not my first language, so maybe 'browsing' wasn't the right word. We have been seriously looking around and she knows that because we have even made offers to sellers with large amounts of earnest money that did not eventually work out ( one property went into short sale during the transaction process). We are renting currently and we start hunting around for a few months before it is time to renew our apt lease. Once we sign a new lease, we take a break. So it is not like we have been continuously going out for property tours every weekend for the last two years. I do give kudos to her for her patience but I have often felt that she continues to hang on by sending us a few teaser properties to hold our interest and is hoping to make a deal with the bare minimum effort required to do so. It has happened many times, and more so recently, that properties having great potential for us, do not come from her but are discovered by my own internet search.
I am actually hoping that she dumps us so that I don't have to do something that my conscience doesn't allow me to go ahead with.
To the responders: Are you all joking? Berating this person for looking for too long? You must be joking. What if where she is looking the inventory is not great? What if the OP actually CARES about not making a horrible financial decision by buying the wrong house? This is an UNPRECEDENTED time to be a buyer. It is a rapidly declining market, with tight credit standards, and low inventory in the desirable areas. Plus every day on TV the experts are warning people not to buy until 2011 or 2015 or somesuch. It's terribly unfair to castigate someone for taking too long to shop in this market. If you agents (I'm really disappointed in your replies) don't want to spend time with a conscientious buyer, then don't. I am sure there are other agents out there who'd be willing to help the OP and other pre-approved buyers who need help navigating this UNPRECEDENTED market.
Some people need to see 5 properties before they make an offer. Some people need to see 50 properties or more. There are many different answers to the question: How many houses should a potential buyer see?
To the OP: If you have not signed an agreement with this agent, dump her and find another agent.
However, unlike the past, she no longer points out the ones that may be particularly interesting for us.
After a couple of years of showing houses to you, she may not believe that there is any house that will be "interesting" to you.
Quote:
If we are thinking of making an offer on a property, she doesn't divulge all the raw data and past history unless I ask specific questions.
Have you let her know exactly what information you need before your tour a home? She can't answer questions that haven't been asked; nor can she read your mind.
I think you should have an open conversation with her about your current concerns. Due to the amount of time she has given you and from the way you describe her it sounds like she is a very good agent in most circumstances, but may have lost the excitement we often have finding someone a home.
You may be able to get her to refer you to a more motivated agent that has a little more time, but is still experienced enough to do a good job. When I first started in my office I picked up tons of work on weekends from agents that couldn't be in 2 places at 1 time. I would do the showings and if questions came up I wasn't too sure about I would communicate the referring agent/broker.
The commission made was split (not down the middle) -- I call it a potential win win win. Unfortunately egos can get in the way of this happening
To the responders: Are you all joking? Berating this person for looking for too long? You must be joking.
Moreso that she is considering dumping this woman because she isn't as completely thorough after all this time (again, years), including having her spend weekends (again, over a span of years) looking at housing. It's like the "new realtor" small wore off, the realtor rightly assumed that they were not serious, but sent them updates anyway.
Since the OP claimed that she was a good realtor at the start of this (YEARS ago) maybe she should reassert to her that she is actually serious about buying this time, instead of considering dumping her without the courtesy of a conversation with her.
To the responders: Are you all joking? Berating this person for looking for too long? You must be joking. What if where she is looking the inventory is not great? What if the OP actually CARES about not making a horrible financial decision by buying the wrong house? This is an UNPRECEDENTED time to be a buyer. It is a rapidly declining market, with tight credit standards, and low inventory in the desirable areas. Plus every day on TV the experts are warning people not to buy until 2011 or 2015 or somesuch. It's terribly unfair to castigate someone for taking too long to shop in this market. If you agents (I'm really disappointed in your replies) don't want to spend time with a conscientious buyer, then don't. I am sure there are other agents out there who'd be willing to help the OP and other pre-approved buyers who need help navigating this UNPRECEDENTED market.
Some people need to see 5 properties before they make an offer. Some people need to see 50 properties or more. There are many different answers to the question: How many houses should a potential buyer see?
To the OP: If you have not signed an agreement with this agent, dump her and find another agent.
Great response, Saltzman. I was thinking the same thing but wasn't going to respond b/c I don't want to appear to be bashing the real estate industry with every post. But it's responses like these that make me wanna tear my hair out and scream THAT IS YOUR JOB!!! And I don't care if it takes 5 years! If you don't want to do it, then get another job or tell the client, I will show you X number of houses. If you can't find one to buy, then I think we should part ways. Fine. I go back and forth on these threads and some of the same real estate professionals completely contradict themselves. I just read a thread about someone wanting to get into the real estate profession part-time and he was practically drawn and quartered! The responses were all about how you need to be available 24/7/365 for your client.
To the OP: I had a similar situation. I looked for three years before buying. I ended up renting out of state for two, but I kept my eye on the market and when I'd come into town, I'd set up showings. I worked with an agent that had a great real estate website and it made it easy for me to do long distance. His website had ALL the information I needed. After a while, I noticed his demeanor toward me changed. He got a little shorter in his responses. He was still nice and professional but I felt the brush off. That was fine. I realized that he probably felt I was stringing him along. I wasn't. If the right situation had presented itself, I would've bought. And even though I have a license, I would've used him b/c I was out of state and it makes it too hard to negotiate that way. So long story longer (sorry), eventually he made his site password necessary. I emailed him for a password. He sent it to me. Then he made his site a pay-to-see. Granted, it was only a nominal fee and he said that was to keep other RE agents from using his data. I elected not to pay the fee. So I found another site much like his. Not quite as detailed or good, but it served my purpose. I never heard from him again.
I bought a condo for 1,050,000. My agent made 30,000. I used the agent whose site I found after I was locked out, so to speak, of the other agent's site.
No hard feelings. But an agent never knows when he may be alienating a buyer. And if he's willing to take that chance, then so be it. I had no qualms about using the other agent.
I got an email from Agent 1 after I put the condo on the market FSBO wanting to talk to me about listing it and he questioned why I used another agent when I bought it a year ago. I told him. I also told him that if and when I decide to list with an agent, if I am not successful as an FSBO, that I will be interviewing agents and he's welcome to interview at that time.
Oh, and to the OP: If English isn't your first language, you couldn't tell it by me! Impeccable! Kudos to you. More people should be bilingual!
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