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We bought our house with a realtor who found and walked us through listings. Ultimately, we found the house we ended up buying. Our buying agent was helpful and

by berdon 8y ago

We bought our house with a realtor who found and walked us through listings. Ultimately, we found the house we ended up buying. Our buying agent was helpful and did a good job but the questions she answered and information she gave was available online. We sold our house without a realtor and had no real issues. Buying agents tended to stray from our listing and most would communicate with us first to make sure we would "pay their fee". Most also tried to sell us on their agency. Overall, I probably won't use a realtor again. The value for my price point was not worth the %.

gangstead 8y ago
This was my experience as well. I've bought two homes and both times we found it ourselves. Used the real estate agent friend of a family member (there's always one) to show us a couple houses and relay offers, but I never felt like they did something I couldn't have done myself. I went along to both home inspections and found things the inspector missed. At all 3 closings (buying and years later selling the first house, buying second house) I've been sitting there in a room full of people sighing and tapping their feet while I read all the paperwork they want me to sign and all three times I've caught mistakes, two of which were several thousand dollars in the other party's favor. All in all it's not just the realtors that are doing mediocre work to extract a percentage, but a whole industry (agents, inspectors, title companies). I couldn't agree more that selling my house by myself was also a breeze. Maybe the experience is different in a down economy. I paid a flat $175 fee to a website for an MLS listing (which farmed the listing out to an agent in our MLS region 5 hours away) plus the 3% buyers agent fee and people started calling. I'm not a great photographer but I took pictures that were 100X better than a realtor walking around with a cell phone and put the Zillow "zestimate" as the listing price because I did a lot of research and took an honest look at my house and couldn't come up with a reason to go higher or lower. I definitely got the "will you pay my fee" calls despite already putting the buyer's agent fee on the MLS listing. As an experiment I tried to negotiate that with an agent and I realized that wasn't going to go anywhere. The only annoying part of the process was the buyer's agent clumsily slipping in some clauses in the contract that would have made it a terrible deal for me. If anyone is reading this and wants to try going without an agent I'd recommend asking a friend who recently closed on a house to see their contract. That will help you spot any tricks an agent is trying to slip past you.
- justwalt 8y ago
  What kinds of tricks did yours try to pull?
  - gangstead 8y ago
    Nothing illegal, but the initial contract was definitely a bad deal for me. The most glaring item was some added in language that translated to if the appraisal comes up short of the contract agreement then the seller will lower the sales price to match the appraisal. In Texas at least an appraiser is chosen somewhat randomly (I'm not sure how, but neither the buyer nor seller get to choose) and they give what is at best a guesstimate. The other glaring things were everywhere a fee was to be paid, they had checked the seller's box, and that wasn't the kind of market we were in. I had already signed for my next house and I wasn't about to pay all the closing costs when I was the buyer and again as the seller. In Texas all the real estate agents use the Texas Real Estate Commission's forms for contracts. It has check boxes and fill-in-the-blanks for all the standard things. I found that almost any place this agent had deviated from one of the standard boxes she had tried to put something shady in. Maybe in her experience people representing themselves were less savvy sellers.

by berdon 8y ago

gangstead 8y ago

This was my experience as well. I've bought two homes and both times we found it ourselves. Used the real estate agent friend of a family member (there's always one) to show us a couple houses and relay offers, but I never felt like they did something I couldn't have done myself. I went along to both home inspections and found things the inspector missed. At all 3 closings (buying and years later selling the first house, buying second house) I've been sitting there in a room full of people sighing and tapping their feet while I read all the paperwork they want me to sign and all three times I've caught mistakes, two of which were several thousand dollars in the other party's favor. All in all it's not just the realtors that are doing mediocre work to extract a percentage, but a whole industry (agents, inspectors, title companies). I couldn't agree more that selling my house by myself was also a breeze. Maybe the experience is different in a down economy. I paid a flat $175 fee to a website for an MLS listing (which farmed the listing out to an agent in our MLS region 5 hours away) plus the 3% buyers agent fee and people started calling. I'm not a great photographer but I took pictures that were 100X better than a realtor walking around with a cell phone and put the Zillow "zestimate" as the listing price because I did a lot of research and took an honest look at my house and couldn't come up with a reason to go higher or lower. I definitely got the "will you pay my fee" calls despite already putting the buyer's agent fee on the MLS listing. As an experiment I tried to negotiate that with an agent and I realized that wasn't going to go anywhere. The only annoying part of the process was the buyer's agent clumsily slipping in some clauses in the contract that would have made it a terrible deal for me. If anyone is reading this and wants to try going without an agent I'd recommend asking a friend who recently closed on a house to see their contract. That will help you spot any tricks an agent is trying to slip past you.

justwalt 8y ago
What kinds of tricks did yours try to pull?
- gangstead 8y ago
  Nothing illegal, but the initial contract was definitely a bad deal for me. The most glaring item was some added in language that translated to if the appraisal comes up short of the contract agreement then the seller will lower the sales price to match the appraisal. In Texas at least an appraiser is chosen somewhat randomly (I'm not sure how, but neither the buyer nor seller get to choose) and they give what is at best a guesstimate. The other glaring things were everywhere a fee was to be paid, they had checked the seller's box, and that wasn't the kind of market we were in. I had already signed for my next house and I wasn't about to pay all the closing costs when I was the buyer and again as the seller. In Texas all the real estate agents use the Texas Real Estate Commission's forms for contracts. It has check boxes and fill-in-the-blanks for all the standard things. I found that almost any place this agent had deviated from one of the standard boxes she had tried to put something shady in. Maybe in her experience people representing themselves were less savvy sellers.