If you own your own place, how did you find your realtor?
Before law school, my parents and I made the decision that I should buy because I would be in the same city for at least three years. Of course, we didn’t know that I would meet CP and move in with him, thus necessitating a sale of my condo after only two years…. Anyway, since I didn’t know anyone out west, I literally went on the internet and found the first realtor that came up. Luckily, he was fantastic and VERY helpful. I used him when I sold the place too.
This past week I asked coworkers if they had any referrals. Remember that most of my coworkers are older and almost retirement age so almost all of them bought their houses YEARS ago. One of the attorneys here just closed on a condo this week, so I was able to get a name of a realtor from him. He recommended her, but when CP called to talk to her, she didn’t ask any questions on what we were looking for. Her two questions were price range and square footage. Well CP and I have a couple of other things that will influence our decision, so that was annoying. She then bombarded us with listings, but what she sent us didn’t even have important information- like the acreage of the lot. We would like to have another garden- an even bigger than the current garden, along with a place for kids to play and the dog to run around, so acreage is something that is important to us (nothing ridonkulous, but at least a little bit of a yard). Because she only spent 5 minutes with CP on the phone, she didn’t find that out. Plus she was supposed to email her recommendations for lenders and didn’t do that. Needless to say, we are not going to use her as our realtor.
When I told my parents about our change in moving plans, my dad mentioned that friends of theirs have children that live in the area that we are moving to. He said that he would contact them to see if they had a realtor referral. So yesterday I got an email from my parents’ friend’s daughter, who not only gave us the contact information, but also pointed us to the realtor’s blog. From what I see from the blog, this realtor looks exactly what we are looking for. She sounds like she knows the towns that we are looking at well and is very hands on. Although this house won’t be a first purchase for CP or me, we don’t know the towns as well as we should, nor the neighborhoods.
But in the age of the internet, what should you expect the realtor to do for you? Obviously we can search the MLS (Multiple Listings Service) just fine ourselves, but part of getting a commission is actually having to work for it, right? I spoke to the realtor and have a phone appointment set up for tomorrow. She likes to talk to potential clients for about half an hour to see where we are in the process, what we are looking for, etc. In other words, it sounds like she is going to earn her commission and be perfect for us! I searched the MLS when buying my condo out west, but the place that I ended up falling in love with and buying was a place that I never even looked at online! My realtor got to know me (despite the distance), got to know what I was looking for, etc. and was able to recommend the place. THAT is what we are looking for in a realtor. Is that too much to ask?
3 comments:
When I bought my first place, I used a realtor a friend of mine used. She was patient with all my property virgin nonsense, which I appreciated.
Over the course of owning that place, I used to get useless postcards from local realtors. Each one highlighted the sale of a unit in my neighborhood. Who cares - it was all public info, tell me something I don't already know. I tossed all of them.
Until I got one postcard that took a bunch of publicly available info and analyzed it and told me interesting things about my hood. I held onto that one and wound up contacting the guy when I was ready to sell. He wound up being great for our needs in both selling my place and buying a new one.
Since then, I've pointed friends and acquaintances to an old friend of mine who has gotten into the real estate market over the past few years. She's been incredibly helpful to those friends, from what I understand.
Point being, word of mouth and showing you're willing to work harder than the next guy are two keys for me in regards to things to look for in a realtor. Oh yeah, listening to your gut, too.
We came across our realtor randomly, by submitting an online request about a house on the Remax site, and she was the person who got back to us. At first we were concerned that she wasn't taking our interest in this house seriously, but after we talked to her more about our options she got on board. What I liked about her was that she explained everything very clearly to us, and she also knew things about houses that weren't in the listings... such as what had a challenging layout and what was on a busy street and what was really near a bad neighborhood. She worked out great, but I would say in general that word of mouth is probably the best way to find someone competent.
Good luck!
you are right, a realtor should be earning their commission...if not, why have one. i'm a realtor and there are MANY that just skate by. i can tell you there is nothing more frustrating than being on one end of a deal with another realtor that has done nothing on their end. realistically, you shouldn't have to do much...you can browse the MLS if you'd like, and most people do, but if the realtor has taken the time to get to know you....they should have everything in line.
another idea is, even if your great realtor is in a different state, they can usually refer you to the best realtor in their company in the area that you are looking for. They will get a referral fee for their trouble of researching, and you will get a quality realtor
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