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Buying and Selling Homes

Disadvantage to using buyer's agent?

11 years ago

I think working with a buyer's agent to buy a home was a mistake. Even though I had visited a house for sale twice and my agent asked to be notified if an offer came in, the listing agent proceeded to take an offer that came straight to them without even letting us know or make an offer.

I suppose this way the listing agent doesn't have to split the commission.

But what if my offer would have been better? The seller will never know.

Am I better off perusing the MLS on my own and calling the listing agents?

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Comments (9)

chispa
11 years ago
Most would assume that after you visited a house twice, if you really liked it, you would have made an offer. What you showed was "I don't really love this house, but if someone else likes it and makes an offer then maybe I was wrong about the house and I should now throw them a bone and write them an offer"!!!

You hesitated and someone else beat you to it. It happens.

In the past I have worked with my own agent and I have also gone straight to listing agents. It depends on the market and location.

During the bubble, when properties moved fast I went straight to the listing agents. It worked because I was buying/selling in the same town and knew most of the agents in the area. I knew my market and price range very very well and didn't need an agent to represent me. I used a lawyer to protect our interests.

Last time we used a buyers agent. It was a relocation and I did not know the area or agents well. I did lots of research too. I interviewed agents and found a really good one with big connections to the town (long time resident, kids in the school system, etc). She ended up finding us a house that wasn't even on the market.
ncrealestateguy
11 years ago
You hesitated... you missed out. You are not a victim. You are a less motivated buyer who got beat out by a more motivated buyer.
Why not put in a back up contract at your highest and best?
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Xamsx's post highlights the issue: You can reveal whatever you want to *your* agent who's acting on your behalf, known as a "buyer's agent". Do not reveal anything to the agent for the seller, even if they are helping you with the transaction--their obligation is to the seller, so if you give them your max price they will use that against you. For purposes of searching for homes with an agent you retain, there is no benefit to giving them a false top price. If they don't know your limit they can't make an effective search for you. Of course, they may show you things slightly out of your range, but you can either say "too much" or let's make an offer in our range and see what happens.
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If the real estate agent is an actual realtor, you can file a complaint against her in many states. Failure to submit offers would be sufficient for a claim in our state. Won't get you anything, but might prevent it from happening to others. I can't imagine how she would be benefitting from failing to submit, as long as she's not representing the other buyers too--could just be complete incompetence.
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They automatically send us MLS listings each day in the area and price range we are interested in. Otherwise, they are not involved in our home search. Did they set this up or did you? Every (real estate) site I've been to has an email feature where you put your search options in and can get email updates as they come on. I don't know what the difference is between the two as I've never had an agent sign me up. Since it sounds like the agents are a bit lazy, you might think to start doing your own searching using the various sites. Here in NJ I've had different results with different sites, they all don't seem to pick up the same listings. Between the 4 or 5 sites I'm signed up at, I have a pretty good variety of houses. I agree with dabunch, and have also lost houses due to an agent that is too laid back. Last year I had about 20 houses I was interested in, I emailed them to the person I was going to use, they never replied. A few weeks later I finally decided to find a different agent, the houses I'd picked were gone. Do you all think our realtors don't want to work with us anymore but are too nice to say? We actually haven't had a signed contract for the last 9 months but they know we will use them in completing a transaction. They haven't said anything negative to us, but they are real Texas gentlemen so who knows. BTW, we referred our son to them and he just bought a starter home from them ($155,000) after seeing 5 other houses. You realtors out there and others, what do you think? Thanks. I don't know what to think about the agents but since there are 2 of them, there is no reason that you should be left waiting, and with what you are saying, I actually wonder if they dragged their feet on putting offers in for you. It almost sounds like they don't think you are serious about buying. You can go 2 ways, have a talk with them and tell them that you are really ready to spend your money and don't want to lose a house and be honest about them being late, not returning phone calls or just ditch them and move on. If you do sign up at a few sites, you might get an email from one of the agents. If so, establish an email relationship, it's actually what I've done. Some agents are wonderful about returning emails while some can't be bothered. I like email because I can email them the MLS numbers that I would like to look at, and it's in writing. I also use the favorites feature on the sites, the Remax site allows me to make folders to save houses to; one is called appointments. One agent I had was great about watching that folder, she knew when I was going to be ready to go out by what I had saved.
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Hey Wow, I've been absent a couple days from the board (my whole family including DH has the chicken pox). It has been hard to keep up with everything. Just wanted to clear up a couple of things about my initial question and current situation. The paper the realtor had the seller sign was not a contract, it was a disclaimer that any offer presented through the realtor included 3% sales commission. I did not know that at first. Second, my first idea was not a flat fee it was 1.5-2% split evenly by buyer and seller. My confusion was that in our area (midwest) houses sell from 130k to 300k, if my realtor sold a house at 130k of which he has many listed than that would earn him the same sales commission that I was offering him so how could he lose money just because the price was higher. I was confused about that. He did ultimately agree to the fee, maybe only because he was aware we could present our offer directly to the seller. This realtor is a good friend of mine and I think he may have felt bad knowing that the seller did not want to go through him. I wanted to make a deal that would work for all 3 parties. I read another post where people found and bought a fsbo and sent thier realtor a thank you note, and a gas card and hopefully some refferals. I found that concept insulting. I did like some of the ideas about a gift card, more expensive and not for gas ($500), but of course worried that would also be insulting. I did not entertain the idea of them losing money because it is slow sales in our area right now and my realtor's firm just started about 4 months ago. Honestly I would have thought his reaction would have been more along the lines of "Thank you, I know that you had no obligation to use our office and your faith in me means alot". I did not get that reaction and by the time they agreed to the 4000 I felt like I was practically begging. As for owner thinking we were eager buyers, that is possible. I believe he had his house priced about 25K below what a realtor could have sold for. I think that he fairly priced it without that 5-6% in it. I truly believe I got a good price in the end 283500. I want to thank everyone on this board and especially all the realtors that post here. I've learned alot
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weedyacres
11 years ago
The listing agent, if he/she was truly representing the best interests of the seller, should have called your agent to see if you wanted to put in a competing offer. That's what my agent's M.O. is, to try to get the highest price.

That said, I don't think it's a matter of being better to go straight to the listing agent. I'm not a fan of dual representation. Better to have your own advocate.
brickeyee
11 years ago
"Am I better off perusing the MLS on my own and calling the listing agents?"

Only if you do not want agent on your side of the table.

'Dual agency' is more of a 'treat everyone fairly' idea, not a 'get the best deal for my customer' deal.

Buying and selling are opposite sides, one wants more, one less. It is pretty hard to do both at the same time.

You waited to make an offer.
YOUR problem it sure sounds like

This post was edited by brickeyee on Fri, Mar 8, 13 at 14:48
adellabedella_usa
11 years ago
I don't see why the listing agent should have called you. I see it as a one in the hand is worth two in the bush. They had a valid offer, you may or may not have offered. Why muddy up a deal if you have what you need?
terezosa / terriks
11 years ago
Maybe the sellers liked the offer and didn't want to wait to see what you might offer and told their agent not to bother calling your agent.
acheavacci
11 years ago
Why were hesitant to putting in an offer? Did you really want the house? Sorry you missed out.
marys1000
11 years ago
I don't think we have the whole story? I think the market plays a role, in a hot market where the listing agent is pretty assured of getting the listing price, why bother calling back?

Unless you had an offer in that was refused but your buyers agent told the listing agent specifically you might come up if there was a competing bid. If that were the case and the listing agent might have gotten the seller more money then I don't think they did the right thing. If you hadn't made an offer and the listing agent got a full price bid, why should they call?
Do you know what it sold for?
User
11 years ago
Snooze and lose. If you want to buy a home, you need to put in an offer on it. That's it in a nutshell. There must have been something about this one that didn't quite work for you or you would have been more confident in making that offer. One you like better may be just around the corner. If you find it, don't hesitate to put in your "first and best". The market is improving in a lot of places and sellers of attractive well priced homes are getting their price, and sometimes more!

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