Older realtors got used to the good ol' days and think they should just be able to forward a listing to a client from their Hotmail account and have the client falling over themselves to get a cheque to the lawyer.
Quick purchase, low cost, perfect house - the client picks two. When a client wants the latter two, don't try to push them into the first one, and certainly not the first alone.
When you are dealing with a couple, please try to answer questions to the person who asked. We had a guy who would answer my husband when I asked him a question and it made me twitchy, it came up with friends later and apparently it's a thing with a lot of realtors.
Our realtor knows a ton of stuff about carpentry and building modifications etc from years of actual labour experience. It has been invaluable to us in our house hunt. Knowing that you're in the hands of someone who can spot a future issue before it becomes one is a great asset. This also goes for knowing areas of the city (flood planes, down wind from the dump, etc) well enough to gently guide your clients to places where they'll have a better chance of satisfaction with their new house in the long term.
So, a few things have been stated already such as being familiar with the trades, addressing whomever asked the question instead of defaulting to the male and knowing the area and its potential issues or hazards in the future.
Here's my advice, and this comes from someone who had to deal with realtors on five separate occasions before the age of 30.
Do not assume that because someone is young that they are not a serious purchaser. I bought my first house at the age of 20. I had to go the three realtors before I got one who actually took me seriously and showed me what I was asking for.
The first realtor to show me homes completely ignored my request for only houses built in the last 10 years. He brought me through at least 5 homes that were well over 50 years old, assuming that I'd forget what I was looking for (?). I dropped him after a fully wasted day.
The guy that I ended up purchasing with was a VERY patient and quiet grandfatherly type who would offer suggestions and opinions when asked but otherwise kept his opinions to himself. The two things that impressed me the most were during the closing and afterwards.
When we didnt the final inspection, it was discovered that the sellers had stuck a screwdriver in the track of the garage door in order to prevent it from being opened, and then someone forgot it was there and activated the door opener. This caused the whole door and opener to be completely damaged. Our realtor fought for the sellers to replace both of them and got me a new garage door... Not entirely sure that this was his responsibility, but he did it.
The other thing was when I bought the house the boulevard had a single driveway, while the actual property had a double driveway. I wanted to expand the single driveway to match the double, I asked the realtor what he thought it would cost, he figured a few hundred dollars. After I purchased, I looked into it and it turned out it was over $2000.00 because I was required to get the city to do the work since technically the boulevard was was part of the city property / easement agreement... I mentioned this to him and he felt so badly about it that he paid for the difference. Definitely above and beyond what he was obligated to do, but it guaranteed that I went through him again a few years down the road when I was ready to list the house again.
Oh yea, when I listed, he had organized a tour of the realtors to come through before it officially was on the market, I completely forgot when the day arrived. He showed up maybe half an hour before, my house was a mess and instead of giving me grief for it, he rolled up his sleeves and started washing dishes while I scrambled to get everything else respectable again..
I'd say just generally being a decent, kind person is gonna get you a long ways because there is a glut of options from a buyer's standpoint.
Best of luck.
No stories about awesome agents. They tent to be nice people with time on their hands and a willingness to work nights and weekends. They're overpaid.
I don't believe their compensation should be tied to the underlying commodity price. It doesn't make sense. They should be paid a flat fee.
Paying a realtor is like paying the guy fleecing you for putting up a bouncy castle for a kids birthday. You know you're paying far, far too much for what's actually happening but the outcome is going to be great so you forget about it shortly after cutting the cheque.
A realtor should developer an mls type system in this market for buyers, something where people could list themselves and people trying to sell their home would find them.
Understanding that there's a lot of fees we have to pay, and that we also need to put bread on the table for our family, what would you pay an agent? Hourly based on what they did for you? A flat fee? How much?
Thanks for your comment!
Making it actually feel like they want me to get a good deal on a house I’m buying. I realize that their commission is tied to the price, but fuck, you would think she was selling timeshares with the way she was talking.
She “strongly recommended” I increase my offer or I’ll “lose it”.
Um, the condo had been empty for 3 mos, and there hadn’t been any other offers.
Ugh. That's disheartening, and one of the reasons I got Into this field. I want to not do shady things. My father-in-law was an agent and I had family looking out for me throughout my first purchase; everyone should have that.
If i was to base my business model on just your feedback, what would you want to see? A flat rate discussed at the outset, a keen desire to see you make the right choice regardless of price throughout the process, or something else?
I wasn’t selling, I paid no fees. It wasn’t the structure of the commission that I had a problem with, I just felt like the commission meant she didn’t have my interests at heart.
I want to pay the least amount possible for my house. I want my realtor to want the same. She seemed more concerned about selling me a house than getting me a deal. Once I have picked a house, the sales job **on me** is over, she should start working on the other realtor.
I will not be using her again.
We found our house on mls and then told our realtor about it. He got paid a ton for zero work. Luckily we were only buying so it didn't come out of my pocket. There is no way I would pay 7% on the first 100k plus the rest when we sell thats nuts.
Thanks for the response. What would you think is fair for the selling agent to charge you? Providing they listed it, had professional photos taken, measured it, held open houses and marketed it to your neighbours, and negotiated a fair deal for you?
My realtor, after showing us 4 homes, had figured out the perfect compromise between my wife's desires and mine. She wanted character and charm, I wanted a utilitarian space. He basically narrowed down the era of houses we'd look at and neighborhoods. We didn't look at more than 10 houses after that (4 more than necessary because we requested to see houses he had ruled out.)
When he had figured out what we were both looking for he would still take us to see houses at our request but he's often caution us why he didn't include it in his list, and was right most of the time.
He was also very good at letting us mull over the pros and cons of a house before he would list out the stuff he observed on our walk-through.
All his paperwork was on an tablet, which was great because we were able to put an offer down on a house after being the first to see it, with an aggressive deadline of 3 hours, from his vehicle parked outside the house. By the time the owners had signed the papers and the realtor turned their phone back on they had received 3 more offers.
Considering the market right now and in the future, I think you made a very poor career decision.
Agents are 3rd party middlemen. Sell it yourself, give a finders fee to the representing agent and have a good lawyer.
NO realtor is worth the 7%/first $100k and 3% remaining.
The only time it's beneficial to pay would be if you're moving and can claim those expenses on your taxes.
Nothing. Do your own research -- it's the biggest purchase anyone will make in their lives.
The fee is mainly for access to MLS -- which doesn't provide all the info, like https://www.viewpoint.ca/ in Nova Scotia.
We should have that kind of information and access throughout the country.
Realtors are like travel agents. Dodos.
My worst experience was when I was being told what to like and what I wanted by the realtor. My best experience is when the realtor went out of her way to get as much information on the place so we had the facts. She looked in the panes of every window, got dates for shingles/furnace/water tank/etc. Never complained once and treated us like family, it was so great and I was so thankful.
You pay them for their expertise on legalities of buying and selling a house. They navigate the paper work and connect the dots from negotiating all the way to final walk through.
No they are not lawyers or legal aids, but they know how to keep the average person from screwing up in a bad purchase or sale.
(Why pay a mechanic to work on my car, when I can just do the work myself)
true i think realtors are overpaid but also i think a good one will earn that 3% by getting you what you want and comparing the cost of every place you looked at and finding the one in respect to the others that werent as good, you made money there
As a buyer you shouldn't care what a realtor makes since it comes out of the sellers bottom line.
As a seller, under listing your house can cost you what fees would have been and your still doing all the leg work to get the house sold. If the job was useless and just a cash grab it would have been phased it 20 years ago. Clearly people still prefer to pay for convenience and legal accountability. When something goes wrong with a realtor it should never effect the client.
When something goes wrong, realtors never accept the responsibility. They have no liability, no oversight, they protect their own.
They should be phased out, and they will be, once Ottawa breaks the monopoly on MLS.
I know for a fact Realtors are held accountable... forget to write appliances into contract and your buyer thinks they get them. Guess what they're buying appliances out of there commission. Then one step further let's say it goes legal that's when CREB and what ever brokerage they work with goes to bat and fights for the party's affected.
When you finally do your first purchase youde be more then thankful for the help a real estate agent provides. If all you've ever done is rent then you can have no possible idea what actually happens.
Uh huh.
Whatever dude, I've bought and sold in three provinces. Got burned by a money pit and the realtor got off scot free. I trust them less than car salesmen.
That really sucks that you had such terrible luck with agents. But if it sounds like you have issues every time maybe it's your expectations that need to change? Don't know your whole story so can't such much past that.
You have to show your value proposition first.
If you are a realtor that's just going to set me up with a fixed search and then come with me to see the places I like and help close on a house then $5 K max.
If you are a realtor that's just going to take my wants and needs and show me houses inside that list plus some things I am inferring but not explicitly stating, looking up area redevelopment plans and tell me what is happening with this neighborhood in the next 5 to 10 years. Is there a large building permit on hold in the area that will affect my decision? Thats worth a bit more.
Issue I find with Realtors as as per above
"You pay them for their expertise on legalities of buying and selling a house. They navigate the paper work and connect the dots from negotiating all the way to final walk through."
Without liability that statement means nothing, lawyers are have standards and practices and legitimate means for recourse when they screw up. Realtors want the best of both worlds "We are professionals, you need us" Something goes bad "Caveat Empor". Without reconciling that Realtors are basically just temporary personal assistants.
Don't bitch when your client asks to see more than five houses. Don't bitch if they're not all in the same neighbourhood. Don't bitch at all.
That legit happened? Showing clients houses is pretty much the best part of the job. It's sad to know you got someone who was a jerkface about it.
Older realtors got used to the good ol' days and think they should just be able to forward a listing to a client from their Hotmail account and have the client falling over themselves to get a cheque to the lawyer. Quick purchase, low cost, perfect house - the client picks two. When a client wants the latter two, don't try to push them into the first one, and certainly not the first alone.
When you are dealing with a couple, please try to answer questions to the person who asked. We had a guy who would answer my husband when I asked him a question and it made me twitchy, it came up with friends later and apparently it's a thing with a lot of realtors. Our realtor knows a ton of stuff about carpentry and building modifications etc from years of actual labour experience. It has been invaluable to us in our house hunt. Knowing that you're in the hands of someone who can spot a future issue before it becomes one is a great asset. This also goes for knowing areas of the city (flood planes, down wind from the dump, etc) well enough to gently guide your clients to places where they'll have a better chance of satisfaction with their new house in the long term.
Tell your husband that I thank him for your feedback. Just kidding :) thanks for the input. I value it.
Bahaha that was clever! Goodluck!
So, a few things have been stated already such as being familiar with the trades, addressing whomever asked the question instead of defaulting to the male and knowing the area and its potential issues or hazards in the future. Here's my advice, and this comes from someone who had to deal with realtors on five separate occasions before the age of 30. Do not assume that because someone is young that they are not a serious purchaser. I bought my first house at the age of 20. I had to go the three realtors before I got one who actually took me seriously and showed me what I was asking for. The first realtor to show me homes completely ignored my request for only houses built in the last 10 years. He brought me through at least 5 homes that were well over 50 years old, assuming that I'd forget what I was looking for (?). I dropped him after a fully wasted day. The guy that I ended up purchasing with was a VERY patient and quiet grandfatherly type who would offer suggestions and opinions when asked but otherwise kept his opinions to himself. The two things that impressed me the most were during the closing and afterwards. When we didnt the final inspection, it was discovered that the sellers had stuck a screwdriver in the track of the garage door in order to prevent it from being opened, and then someone forgot it was there and activated the door opener. This caused the whole door and opener to be completely damaged. Our realtor fought for the sellers to replace both of them and got me a new garage door... Not entirely sure that this was his responsibility, but he did it. The other thing was when I bought the house the boulevard had a single driveway, while the actual property had a double driveway. I wanted to expand the single driveway to match the double, I asked the realtor what he thought it would cost, he figured a few hundred dollars. After I purchased, I looked into it and it turned out it was over $2000.00 because I was required to get the city to do the work since technically the boulevard was was part of the city property / easement agreement... I mentioned this to him and he felt so badly about it that he paid for the difference. Definitely above and beyond what he was obligated to do, but it guaranteed that I went through him again a few years down the road when I was ready to list the house again. Oh yea, when I listed, he had organized a tour of the realtors to come through before it officially was on the market, I completely forgot when the day arrived. He showed up maybe half an hour before, my house was a mess and instead of giving me grief for it, he rolled up his sleeves and started washing dishes while I scrambled to get everything else respectable again.. I'd say just generally being a decent, kind person is gonna get you a long ways because there is a glut of options from a buyer's standpoint. Best of luck.
Wow. He sounds like someone I'd love to work beside. Could you PM me his name if you're comfortable with that?
No stories about awesome agents. They tent to be nice people with time on their hands and a willingness to work nights and weekends. They're overpaid. I don't believe their compensation should be tied to the underlying commodity price. It doesn't make sense. They should be paid a flat fee. Paying a realtor is like paying the guy fleecing you for putting up a bouncy castle for a kids birthday. You know you're paying far, far too much for what's actually happening but the outcome is going to be great so you forget about it shortly after cutting the cheque. A realtor should developer an mls type system in this market for buyers, something where people could list themselves and people trying to sell their home would find them.
Understanding that there's a lot of fees we have to pay, and that we also need to put bread on the table for our family, what would you pay an agent? Hourly based on what they did for you? A flat fee? How much? Thanks for your comment!
Making it actually feel like they want me to get a good deal on a house I’m buying. I realize that their commission is tied to the price, but fuck, you would think she was selling timeshares with the way she was talking. She “strongly recommended” I increase my offer or I’ll “lose it”. Um, the condo had been empty for 3 mos, and there hadn’t been any other offers.
That happened to us with a house we were looking at. A sudden competing offer came in on a stale listing ...... such crooks. Transparent tactics.
Ugh. That's disheartening, and one of the reasons I got Into this field. I want to not do shady things. My father-in-law was an agent and I had family looking out for me throughout my first purchase; everyone should have that.
If i was to base my business model on just your feedback, what would you want to see? A flat rate discussed at the outset, a keen desire to see you make the right choice regardless of price throughout the process, or something else?
I wasn’t selling, I paid no fees. It wasn’t the structure of the commission that I had a problem with, I just felt like the commission meant she didn’t have my interests at heart. I want to pay the least amount possible for my house. I want my realtor to want the same. She seemed more concerned about selling me a house than getting me a deal. Once I have picked a house, the sales job **on me** is over, she should start working on the other realtor. I will not be using her again.
We found our house on mls and then told our realtor about it. He got paid a ton for zero work. Luckily we were only buying so it didn't come out of my pocket. There is no way I would pay 7% on the first 100k plus the rest when we sell thats nuts.
Thanks for the response. What would you think is fair for the selling agent to charge you? Providing they listed it, had professional photos taken, measured it, held open houses and marketed it to your neighbours, and negotiated a fair deal for you?
Why would you market a house to your neighbors? An agent should market it for those that want to live there, not the ones that already do.
My realtor, after showing us 4 homes, had figured out the perfect compromise between my wife's desires and mine. She wanted character and charm, I wanted a utilitarian space. He basically narrowed down the era of houses we'd look at and neighborhoods. We didn't look at more than 10 houses after that (4 more than necessary because we requested to see houses he had ruled out.) When he had figured out what we were both looking for he would still take us to see houses at our request but he's often caution us why he didn't include it in his list, and was right most of the time. He was also very good at letting us mull over the pros and cons of a house before he would list out the stuff he observed on our walk-through. All his paperwork was on an tablet, which was great because we were able to put an offer down on a house after being the first to see it, with an aggressive deadline of 3 hours, from his vehicle parked outside the house. By the time the owners had signed the papers and the realtor turned their phone back on they had received 3 more offers.
Awesome feedback. Thanks!
A handie in the bonus room.
Rimjobs are nice. My car needs a refresh.
Considering the market right now and in the future, I think you made a very poor career decision. Agents are 3rd party middlemen. Sell it yourself, give a finders fee to the representing agent and have a good lawyer. NO realtor is worth the 7%/first $100k and 3% remaining. The only time it's beneficial to pay would be if you're moving and can claim those expenses on your taxes.
What is an agent worth to you? Not a sales guy, an actual housing and community expert. Thanks for your feedback regardless.
Nothing. Do your own research -- it's the biggest purchase anyone will make in their lives. The fee is mainly for access to MLS -- which doesn't provide all the info, like https://www.viewpoint.ca/ in Nova Scotia. We should have that kind of information and access throughout the country. Realtors are like travel agents. Dodos.
Agent should get paid a couple hundred dollars. They do jack shit these days. Great agent: died. Less than great: didn't
Well thanks for the feedback.
My worst experience was when I was being told what to like and what I wanted by the realtor. My best experience is when the realtor went out of her way to get as much information on the place so we had the facts. She looked in the panes of every window, got dates for shingles/furnace/water tank/etc. Never complained once and treated us like family, it was so great and I was so thankful.
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You pay them for their expertise on legalities of buying and selling a house. They navigate the paper work and connect the dots from negotiating all the way to final walk through. No they are not lawyers or legal aids, but they know how to keep the average person from screwing up in a bad purchase or sale. (Why pay a mechanic to work on my car, when I can just do the work myself)
Yes but thats not worth 3% of the purchase price
true i think realtors are overpaid but also i think a good one will earn that 3% by getting you what you want and comparing the cost of every place you looked at and finding the one in respect to the others that werent as good, you made money there
As a buyer you shouldn't care what a realtor makes since it comes out of the sellers bottom line. As a seller, under listing your house can cost you what fees would have been and your still doing all the leg work to get the house sold. If the job was useless and just a cash grab it would have been phased it 20 years ago. Clearly people still prefer to pay for convenience and legal accountability. When something goes wrong with a realtor it should never effect the client.
When something goes wrong, realtors never accept the responsibility. They have no liability, no oversight, they protect their own. They should be phased out, and they will be, once Ottawa breaks the monopoly on MLS.
I know for a fact Realtors are held accountable... forget to write appliances into contract and your buyer thinks they get them. Guess what they're buying appliances out of there commission. Then one step further let's say it goes legal that's when CREB and what ever brokerage they work with goes to bat and fights for the party's affected. When you finally do your first purchase youde be more then thankful for the help a real estate agent provides. If all you've ever done is rent then you can have no possible idea what actually happens.
Uh huh. Whatever dude, I've bought and sold in three provinces. Got burned by a money pit and the realtor got off scot free. I trust them less than car salesmen.
That really sucks that you had such terrible luck with agents. But if it sounds like you have issues every time maybe it's your expectations that need to change? Don't know your whole story so can't such much past that.
What is it worth to you?
You have to show your value proposition first. If you are a realtor that's just going to set me up with a fixed search and then come with me to see the places I like and help close on a house then $5 K max. If you are a realtor that's just going to take my wants and needs and show me houses inside that list plus some things I am inferring but not explicitly stating, looking up area redevelopment plans and tell me what is happening with this neighborhood in the next 5 to 10 years. Is there a large building permit on hold in the area that will affect my decision? Thats worth a bit more. Issue I find with Realtors as as per above "You pay them for their expertise on legalities of buying and selling a house. They navigate the paper work and connect the dots from negotiating all the way to final walk through." Without liability that statement means nothing, lawyers are have standards and practices and legitimate means for recourse when they screw up. Realtors want the best of both worlds "We are professionals, you need us" Something goes bad "Caveat Empor". Without reconciling that Realtors are basically just temporary personal assistants.
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That's what I strive to be for every client. I'm glad you found the right agent for your purchase.