Started house shopping recently. Aunty Sally is from word of mouth and seems no good/help for us. She seems to be upselling properties and asking me to put 15% over asking price from seller. Probably she wants her 2-3% commission desperately. Where to find a good buyer agent ? Redfin seems to give part of the buyer agent commission to cover closing cost. #sanfrancisco
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The best agent is yourself. Don’t trust agents. They want to get the commission. Educate yourself by going to open houses and also reading property reports. After sometime you have much better understanding of the market in the given area that you are looking better than any agent.
Yes, I do agree. But what I have experienced is agents can give their professional advice on the goods/bads of a property, can get me all the inspection reports, cc&rs, other disclosures from MLS which I have no clue off. Else buyer realtors would just deal with selling and not deal with buyer clients :)
Www.shopprop.com was a good experience and see if u like it
Option E, referral from friend. Based on what you wrote I'd dump Sally yesterday. buyer's agents are free. Find the best one for the hood you want to buy in. Zillow let's you see which agents closed the most sales per neighborhood. start there if you really dont have a single friend or family or coworker that can refer you an agent
Friends referral. That’s how I found mine and she’s so cool.
When I was looking for a house in Seattle, I used Redfin. You can book a tour on the website on the same day; there will be an associate to show you the house. Associates are contractors; Redfin pays them for each tour and they don’t have incentives to push you to buy the house or upsell another house. Redfin agent doesn’t get %, they get a bonus based on your happiness (rating). I signed contract with Redfin only when I made an offer, so I could use a different agent, if I wanted to.
Just go to open houses on the weekends until you figure out what you like. Then just use Redfin etc to find the a house you want to buy. Then if you are good at negotiating just do dual agency. If you aren't, get a agent to negotiate for you. You will meet lots of agents at the open houses. Just pick one you are able to trust.
You can also find a real estate attorney (not agent) to write the purchase contract for you. They charge a much smaller flat fee instead of commission. By California law, you don’t need a real estate agent, only a real estate attorney . Or actually, only need a legal purchase contract, you can also get the online legal doc and do it yourself if you feel like.
Where are you located?
SF Bay Area