What Are Your Specific Needs?
Your Specific Needs:
When you are thinking about buying a home, especially if it is your first home, you want to feel confident that you have a great team helping you through the process.
The Role of the Agent:
Strong agents have:
- Local Market Knowledge: the specific neighborhoods you are interested in, and the type of property (some agents specialize in condos, or single family homes, or investment property)
- Experience helping buyers like you through the purchase process
- Professional Network: Contacts with a network of high quality appraisers, inspectors, contractors, attorneys, mortgage brokers and lenders, insurance agents,
- Negotiating Expertise: not just the price, but also terms and conditions (will your offer be contingent upon the seller fixing the roof first? does the seller want to stay in the home for an extra month and are you willing to delay your move? etc.)
- Resources: just because the brokerage has a nationally-advertised name doesn’t mean it provides better service, but you do want to make sure that your agent has access to the tools of the trade (like the MLS)
- Professionalism: these days, most agents are trained professionals, not part-timers looking for a little extra household money. But it’s still a good idea to work with an agent who is active in your market and isn’t either trying out a new career or basically retired and selling 1 or 2 houses a year as hobby.
- Flexible Communication Style: you need to work with someone who makes you feel confident that you are being told everything you need to know. Buying a home can be a very emotional and stressful experience, you want someone who will understand you and your concerns.
- Positive Image: this person is going to represent you to the seller and the listing agent. You should be comfortable with his or her style and how they conduct themselves during a negotiation.
Breaking up:
If you find that the agent you’ve chosen isn’t working out, you don’t need to feel guilty and avoid their calls. Buying the wrong property can be a financial disaster and your first priority has to be your needs.
Sometimes agents are too busy to give you the help you need, or don’t have the right kind of expertise, or just don’t listen to the housing type or price range you say you want to look in. In these cases, it’s best to be upfront and say that “It just isn’t working out.”
You don’t want to miss finding the perfect home because the agent isn’t showing it to you (for whatever reason).
The only issue comes in some cases if an agent has shown you a property and you switch agents and then purchase that property. In some cases, the original agent who showed you the home is entitled to the commission. This depends on state and local regulations.
To keep this from happening, please interview your agent before making the choice and ask these questions.