If looking at multiple locations - do I need multiple realtors? (Roseville: for sale, houses)

[CityGirl72]

Wow

Now we are just looking all over. Roseville,Folsom, East Sac, Land Park, Granite Bay, Fair oaks, and parts of Carmichael

Does one realtor do it all?

When we bought the house we have we used a reccommended realtor and he was a great guy but he didn't the area at all...

So this time we want an expert! But how can just one person know ALL the areas?

[NewToCA]

I would say that if you stick to greater Sac it should be OK, but if you add Auburn or Palcerville etc I would go with a specialist for those outlying areas.

[Luke9686]

You only need one realtor. That being said, realtors usually specialize in a few specific areas. They may not know the all the areas you are interested.

[cw68]

I would get different realtors for the different areas. For instance, I wouldn't have a Folsom realtor work Land Park, though technically they could. Go for a realtor that specializes in certain neighborhoods and you'll get better results. There's no way a realtor can know all the quirks, ins and outs of each neighborhood. Our Land Park realtor know that neighborhood like the back of her hand, but she couldn't tell me the one street to stay away from in a certain neighborhood of Folsom because the neighbors don't keep up the property well, nor could she tell me which builders have better floorplans or quality of work. It's not her focus. Conversely, a Folsom realtor couldn't tell me the best streets in Land Park for the money.

[MamaToThree]

One realtor would probably be fine, but I agree with cw68 that most realtors have areas of specialty.

For example:

Roseville/Folsom/Granite Bay
Carmichael/Fair Oaks
Land Park/East Sac

You might need 3.

[charsacutter]

I would go with one Realtor. Realtors work harder for you if you are not jumping around from one Realtor to another. I feel the areas you are looking in are close enough that one Realtor should be able to help you. You need to establish a trust with your Realtor and it would be difficult if you were bouncing from one to another.

[justducky2]

When we moved up here, our first realtor was referred by our realtor in SoCal, and the realtor was based in El Dorado Hills. After seeing some houses in El Dorado Hills, we knew that EDH was not the community for us. When we asked them to show us Cameron Park, Shingle Springs, and Lotus/Coloma, they didn't know anything about any of the properties, didn't preview them to see if they met our needs (we were making a 7 hour drive to NoCal every weekend), showed us homes in bad areas, and couldn't even get their car up the country gravel driveways. We fired them and got a realtor that really knew the properties in Cameron Park/Shingle Springs well. He understood what we were looking for by the third house, and found us a home the first weekend with him.

If you are looking in Folsom, for instance, I'm not sure that a realtor that is more in tune with midtown would do you justice...you might miss out on some great properties, or the realtor might not know of some neighborhood issues to steer you away from.

I agree with the previous poster that you need build trust...as part of that trust, I think you need to establish with the realtor you're working with, what their area of specialization is in, and let them know that you need to look at X community, do they work there often?? And then decide if they will be able to fully serve your needs in the other community, and let them know that.

Good luck!

[DMenscha]

Figure out where you want to live first. You can shop online all you want to help you narrow down your preferred location. When you seriously know where, get a realtor in that location.

My service area covers about 100 Square miles (20x10) but I've only got 150 properties in the area that are for sale. You could probably cover that in the Sac area in a 2 square mile area. There's no way any agent could help you cover all that territory and do you a good service.

I do know a great realtor in the Fair Oaks area if you end up looking there.