To realtor or not to realtor?
 

We're looking to purchase a property soon and we have been scouring MLS (realtor.ca) to find potentials...

The question is now, should we engage a realtor to act on our behalf as a buying realtor?

If we don't engage a buying realtor - is there any likelihood that the final negotiated price would be less, as there isn't an extra realtor to pay a commission to? Or is this setting yourself up to get well and truly scalped by the selling realtor?

Once you engage a buying realtor - do you have to sign anything to say that you will use them for any eventual purchase or is it just an unwritten expectation that will be the case?

If we do use a buying realtor and then go on to find a property using one of the private sale websites (private exchange, property guys etc) - how would you tell them that you didn't need their services anymore as there was no commission for them to dig into?

Thx!

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

When signing with a Purchasing Realtor be very careful that you don't sign a document that locks you in with him/her/them for a prescribed period of time. You will be unable to fire them before expiry, and if you buy a house under another realtor the original one can claim share of the commission.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

You'll determine the price regardless, a purchasing agent can't negotiate that for you. An agent might bring local knowledge but, if you already live where you'll buy, you'll have that already.

You would typiclally sign an agreement to pay the agent a commission on any purchase. If the purchase is a traditional one then the money comes from the sale price, if it's an FSBO or whatever, then directly from you.

I think there's an advantage in having someone else negotiate for you, someone with no emotional stake in the deal but that needs to be someone who's interests don't run counter to yours. A purchasing agent's interest is in getting you to buy and, if possible, to buy high. If the purpose of the agent would be negotiation only, I'd hire a lawyer to do that for an hourly rate, that'd give you someone who could scruntinize contracts and who will know the issues that usually arise. Someone who's getting paid for advice to buy or advice to run away.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

We used a buying Realtor, a friend of the OH from her church, so he was to be trusted.

It should cost nothing for you to use one to buy if you are not selling. Its the seller who pays the $$$'s for him/her.

First thing we noticed, and this was only last month, most of the listings on MLS are already sold, they leave them on to get you reeled in.

Our house that we have bought was not on MLS until 2 days after we had our offer accepted. Our Realtor had found it first. We were then able to have a look at it on MLS. After we had viewed and bought....LOL

There is a few things that need doing before you can put in an offer and a Realtor will cover all the bases for you and secure a positive offer of purchase.

Bit crap if the house of your dreams goes for a few dollars more than your offer and you not there to grab it back. We parked outside the house we have bought with our Realtor inside doing the bargaining, until 12 am, we got the house for $1,000 more than asking price. We had seen nothing any where near as good and thought that it was worth the little extra.

We move in in 2 weeks.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

+1

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

The only lock in's I like are the ones that occur in a pub :rofl:

Houses are not really selling around here and haven't been for several years now, not uncommon for some houses to have been on the market for a couple of years!

The whole process fills me with dread really - but renting is throwing money away so have no choice sooner or later.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

So is paying a Realtor to sell your house you bought in haste wanting to save paying rent.

Renting is a necessary evil IMO. Just untill you know where you would like to live, work n play. Then buy.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Just don't believe the realtor works for you. They want to make a sale. One thing I found is that they don't know the properties they are showing you. In fact, it may be the first time they are seeing them. I would much prefer to be shown around by the owner where I can actually ask important questions.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

if your buying, then i'd def consider one. it wont cost you anything.
find one that you feel happy with. I went to lots of open houses to see how the realtors treated and spoke to us when we walked in to see if i'd consider using them, i found plenty that didnt even speak to us, it became obvious which ones i'd would consider using. When buying they will (or should) know what subjects or conditions to include in the offer contract etc which could make your life much easier.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Will have rented for 3 years by the time our lease is up this time around, if we don't find something then we may extend for another year, so that will be 4 years :eek:

Hadn't thought of going to open houses to suss out the realtors.... :sneaky: Had some recommendations from friends, but now don't really know how to choose between them!

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl:

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Sorry my bad....Sounds like you done your time then and ready for the plunge...LOL

Personal references are good, no one will promote some one who then turns out to be a rogue Realtor, you would hope. :fingerscrossed:

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

What, ? :sneaky:

He was good actually. He get his cut like they all do, and he was stuck with dealing with me.

Note i said OH church, not my thing but she has met so many people via church, it like the bloomin masons in there. LOL

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

I disagree a bit with this. The purchaser's agent on a typical deal would prefer to get say 3% of $500,000 ($15K) in his or her pocket than to dick about trying to make it $15,500 or whatever.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

I'm sorry. It was the idea the someone you met in church could automatically be trusted that wobbled me on the barstool. <rhymes with blackpool>

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Yeh i get what you sayin, she known him for almost 2 1/2 years now. He not going anywhere, and if he fks up, we know where to find him...LOL

Must be hard though putting trust in some one you don't even know already. :blink:

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Hmm. I don't think you should actually trust a realtor in the first place. (But see above for caveats).

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Maybe then, trust is the wrong word in the case of a Realtor. Maybe you have to confidently use his knowledge and contacts to secure that dream home.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

also a lot of open house are run by other agents and not the listing agent. so I found it a very good way of seeing if they are remotly likeable or knowledgeable. you dont need to tell them your looking for an agent, infact we rarely got asked. I presume they just think many visitors are just there for a sunday trip out to look at other people homes.

i found if you go out activly looking for one then you just get the honed sales pitch of why you should use them, and they all have a similar pitch.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

We used a buying Realtor, a friend of the OH from her church, so he was to be trusted.

A surprising comment from a Private Investigator. Earl Jones of Montreal scammed old ladies from his chrch of over $50million and I'm sure Bernie Madoff got some contacts through his and other synagogues.
Religion and honesty can be strange bedfollows.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

How could a Realtor, who is looking for a house, in an area that he actually lives, scam 100's of 1,000's from us though? :unsure:

Sure i would notice the slight price deviation, or my bank would notice a moved decimal point.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

We are currently using a realtor for our first purchase in canada.

Couple of things:
we haven't signed any buyer's agreement ( and I wouldn't);

it has been useful viewing houses with him- he is pretty informative about
what is wrong with them, resale potential, how much things cost to fix etc etc. I would never spot the things he has spotted, sure a Home inspector would, but its nice to know things before you get to that emotionally invested point. He knows the area and the types of problems etc
we get tricklefed properties a few days before they come on MLS. This could be important for the house that turns out to to 'right';

for us of course its a free service and I suspect any seller's realtor wouldn't reimburse their client if there was no buyer's realtor so suspect it makes no difference to the price.

we put a lowball offer in and it was really useful to have him explain all the ins and outs of the contract and TBH the buying process is different and its good to have that explained, that said it has taken a few weeks to get to know each others thinking

Ours sent us all the properties that had sold in sub-division in last 15 months and sends the last 5 years for streets we are interested in. This is more than I could look up on council pages as it has photos , asking price, selling price. You can see the upgades etc

I don't begrude people earning a living. I charge a lot for my services and so understand he gets paid out of the deal.

His mortage broker was able to offer us prime -0.85 % which is at least 0.1% better than I would have found most places and 0.2% better than our bank

So I would go for a realtor. Why not? Do I trust him every inch of the way? Don't be silly, but that doesn't mean we don't get anything from it.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Nicely said :thumbup:

I agree with the knowledge that a Realtor can bring to the purchase.

It's like buying a car with a knowledgeable mechanic at your side.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

I would defo recommend a realtor, but choose one that will work for u at no charge, there are plenty of them, they will get enough money from their cut of commission on the house they sell u, most realtors charge 5%, so if he sells another realtors house he will get 2 1/2% and the listing agent will get 2 1/2%

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Using a realtor is not a free service if you are buying. It's not the sellers money that pays them is it when the deal completes is it.

We used one. I don't like the system here, but what you gonna do?

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

<chokes on cornflakes>

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

my point was that someone you have known for several yrs, and whome you socialise, on a weekly basis, would most likley try harder to secure the right hse than some one you met 5 mins ago on the tinternet.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

here's our experience

• we rented for 15 months and bought the rental property
• we didn't use (or need) a realtor which gave us 20K to bargain with right away
• i organized everything to do with the purchase, which wasn't rocket science really - and anyone who tells you otherwise is giving you BS

having said that, we were in a perfect situation and didn't need a realtor to help us with finding a house or location information etc

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

As a Realtor, I obviously have a biased opinion on this subject. A few posters are correct in the fact that the buyer does indirectly pay the commission as it is built into the purchase price and it's the buyers money that pays it, but there typically isn't a fee paid directly from the buyer. Some agents will require a buyers agency agreement be signed that states the buyer must use that agent for any purchase for a certain amount of time. If the buyer finds a FSBO that isn't willing to pay the agent a commission, then the buyer is on the hook for it. Although I see why some agents do this, I don't. I feel that if I wasn't able to find them a home through my efforts, why should I be compensated.

A good agent should know the area they are selling in and bring value to their clients through their knowledge, negotiating abilities and the like.

One poster mentioned visiting open houses to get a sense of the agent, and I think that's a great approach. If you are not in the area you are looking to buy in, email a few agents with some general questions and see how they respond and how long it takes them to respond. Personal references from people you know and trust is also a good source IMO as most people don't want to suggest someone they don't feel comfortable with.

As with any profession, there are good and bad, and Real Estate is no different. There are many posters here that obviously have a negative opinion about Realtors, but not all of us are bad people, devious or solely looking out for their own pocket book. Personally, I would rather have a happy client who didn't buy a home as opposed to an upset one who felt they bought the wrong one through some underhandedness on my part.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Your naievete appears to have no bounds.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Meaning what? If you have a point about not using some one whom you already know then state your point sir.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

We've worked with a couple of Canadian realtors - the first was excellent (a recommendation from BE). She didn't know the houses she was showing us, but took time to look at every aspect whilst we were viewing them. She didn't try to push us into buying and often pointed out negative aspects that we hadn't initially picked up on. Having heard a lot of negative things about realtors we were very pleasantly surprised.
The second realtor was nowhere near as good. She wasn't recommended and we got stuck with her because of our relocation. She just walked into the houses and wittered on about how wonderful they were, dismissing any of the issues we pointed out. The only houses she suggested we look at did not fit our criteria in any way, however they were much more expensive than our stated price range!!
So, some good, some bad - it's worth doing the open house thing and also asking for recommendations on BE!

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

BE.com, a post about realtors and sanity. It doesn't happen very often.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

No. All that happens is that the listing agent acts as your agent, has a huge conflict of interest (because they are paid to maximize the sale price) and pockets both commissions.

Maybe on a FSBO there is some room for negotiation, but the reason sellers go the FSBO route is that they expect to keep the commission - not give it away to the buyer.

The process is different in Canada. It makes sense to use a professional to guide you through it all.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

+1

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Whereas, if you have a buying agent, you have two agents who are paid to maximize the sale price.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Novo has already refuted this and I completely agree with him.

In BC the realtor's commissions are heavily weighted to the first $100,000 of the sale price. Above this, pushing up the sale price by $10,000 will earn a realtor less than $100. Only the most self-interested and money grabbing agent is going to risk the rest of the commission on a sale for that.

Maybe in your business it is worth p*ss*ng off clients for a hundred bucks but a good realtor knows it certainly isn't in their best interests. A realtor is only ever going to make serious money if they have lots of happy customers recommending them to others.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Little incentive to rip you off does not imply an incentive to get you the best deal possible. The incentive is to complete the deal - not to get the buyer the best property for the best price.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

Commissions to agents here aren't layered, it's n% of the selling price. I accept that some agents aren't going to make a fuss over a few hundred bucks but counting on that is like counting on a cop not giving you a ticket for speeding. There's no incentive for either agent to try and drive a sale price down so they may as well settle for as high a price as they think will keep the buyer calm.

House and car sales differ from sales of services as there's no continuing business; whether or not you like the agent, you're not going to buy another house or car next week. It's not a business in which relationships or reputation are particularly important as the chances of the parties dealing with each other a second time are tiny. Something that's true even if you suppose that the mls commissioned sales arrangement is going to be around in years to come.

Re: To realtor or not to realtor?
 

From your perspective it is probably a one-off deal. It isn't for a realtor. The value of a happy client is far more than the commission on a sale. It is the commissions they will earn from people the client recommends to them, and who they recommend and so on. An unhappy client might be worth $3-4k. A happy client potentially $Ms.

A realtor starting out might spend 10% of their time working with clients and 90% of their time and money marketing themselves. They will only become rich when they can spend 90% of their time with clients and let their former customers do their marketing for them for free.