If someone out there is brave enough to venture into home-ownership right now, please please please, make sure that the agent of your choice is A) licensed and B) competent!
How can YOU choose a good real estate agent? Well, for one, try to get a referral from someone you know and trust. Personal experience goes a long way, and if someone you know has worked with an agent that has treated them well, and also represented their best interests properly, by all means- use that agent.
Buying a home will be the largest investment many people will ever make, and the ramifications will last for years to come- so make sure you are well-represented, and taken care of.
Why am I, a lender, concerned with who people use as their agents? Well, it makes my job easier when my clients have a responsive, active, competent agent who knows not only the ins and outs of writing a real estate contract, but also some of the ins and outs of financing, appraisal, inspections- who to use, when to order services, who to go to for emergency issues that crop up- these types of intangibles are HUGE in the buying process. And these intangibles come with either experience, or a healthy amount of common sense. For example, if an agent knows that an FHA appraisal will occur, and they KNOW that there is a faulty railing on the back deck, they can save you time AND money. They can jump on that, ask the owner to fix the railing prior to the initial appraisal, and be done with it. Instead, if they don’t have a clue, you get the appraisal report, then the lender wants to see proof that the railing was fixed. You then have to pay $125 and wait another 3 days for the owner to take care of the issue, and have the appraiser back out to take a second look. See? A ridiculous waste of time and money.
I guess agent incompetence has hit me hard the last few days.
Maybe Andrew Adams will be kind enough to post his most recent encounter as well.
If you take anything at all from this rant, please let it be that buyers need good people working FOR them.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I should let you know that I am also a licensed real estate salesperon. Non-practicing, but still, licensed and very up to date on ‘training’- whatever that means.
Jennifer Monastero
Citizens Community Bank
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Comments
1 Comment so far
Andrew Adams
Sorry Jenn,
I have been out of the Office since last week and am just catching up on all my reading.
True Story:
One of my referral sources called me to run a scenario by me to see what they were missing. One of her listings went under agreement for $515,000 the appraisal was completed and came back $30,000 less at $485,000. Buyer and Seller agreed to meet in the middle with a sales price of $500,000. After agreeing to the $500,000 price the buyers agent comes back to the listing agent and askes that the sales price be increased to $503,000 and have the seller pay $3,000 of the buyers closing costs.
For those not in the business this is a ridiculous request. Since the property appraised for less than the sales price any increase in the sales price will require the borrower to bring those additional funds to closing.
Essentially the buyers agent is having the buyer bring an additional $3,000 to closing to have the seller then give those funds back to the buyer at closing.
The part that I find humorous is the buyers agent and the buyer think they did a great job negotiating…