Put on your war paint. It’s time to go house hunting. If this is your first time out there on the battlefield, get ready for excitement, heartbreak, and hopefully the thrill of victory. While you (hopefully) won’t be spilling any blood, you will run into some tough sellers. They have agents working hard for them to try and keep the price as high as possible. Likewise, you need an agent who knows how to negotiate for the lowest fair price.
You Don’t Have To Pay Out Of Pocket For an Agent
It doesn’t matter whether your family or a friend is in the business or you get an agent through a referral service like Agent Harvest. You don’t have to pay for the help. Agent commissions are paid by the seller. How does your agent get paid? Simple. The seller’s agent splits the commission.
If you’re working with a duel agency (not recommended), the agent keeps everything. A duel agency is where the seller’s agent is also your agent. Because the seller’s agent makes more money by selling the house for a higher price, you’re immediately at odds with your own agent if you enter into this type of arrangement. Most people are better off going with a dedicated buyer’s agent.
If you’re not sure whether an agent is representing the seller, ask. They have to disclose this to you.
A Buyer’s Agent Will Protect You
A dedicated buyer’s agent will protect your interests during the sale. This means that the buyer’s agent will arrange tours for you so you can visit multiple homes, negotiate with the seller about the price, and even help you through the closing process.
Experienced buyers agent can also recommend title services, home inspectors, and even mortgage lenders and brokers. They don’t earn a commission for any of this. In fact, it’s illegal for a real estate professional to receive any compensation for referring a mortgage lender.
If you go with a realtor, you’ll be even more protected. Realtors are real estate agents who belong to the National Association of Realtors. They are held to a particularly stringent code of ethics that mandates your interests above the interests of the realtor.
You Can’t Go It Alone
In some cases, it’s practically impossible to go it alone. Some real estate professionals are hard to get ahold of, and the seller only deals with other agents. In many cases, however, you can access the seller directly – but it’s not recommended.
If you’re not familiar with the home-buying process, you can very easily get tripped up in the small details. For example, you see a home that looks nice on the Internet. You go and check it out in person. It looks amazing. You decide this is the house for you, so you put in a bid with the agent on-site.
You go through the closing, feeling really good about doing it all yourself. The only problem is that, after you move in, you realize that you have to repair all of the major HVAC system and appliances in the home. Ouch. A real estate agent could have helped you by recommending a good home inspector, negotiating for concessions, and doing a few other “top secret” tactics that take years of experience and education to pull off.
Phillip Waterman has a keen sense of the housing market. When not reseraching real estate trends, he greatly enjoys blogging about navigating through a successful buying and selling experience.
