Welcome to
Ida Freimer's Buyer's Guide!
Let us assume at first that you want to buy a real property on your own. You know what you can afford, you know the legal process, and you have good access to the data of what is available. You just need to find the property. You scan different web pages; you check the ads in the paper. A few of the available properties are offered for sale by their owners, the vast majority of them are marketed by different real estate agents. You can see, and even buy the properties offered by their owners directly from them - you call the owner, and you arrange all the details. You can use a realtor to help you, but you may not need one. However, in order to see and buy the properties offered through the real estate agencies, or HUD properties, you need to contact an agent - the owner chose to be represented by a professional, and does not want to negotiate with you directly. You are stuck! You can contact a listing agent for each property, or a random agent from the listing office, or an agent from a different office, but you must communicate with the seller through an agent.
Therefore, if you want to see a wide range of properties, you will end up communicating with real estate agents anyway. Should you call a different one each time, or should you choose the one you like the most? I strongly believe that you should choose one, or a few, if you want to cover a wide territory. Why? Because the agents are human beings, you do not trust them when you just met them, and they do not trust you. Yet they have other customers whom they know well and trust, they may be friends, or even have a contractual relationship. Whom do you think they will treat better? A total stranger who will call any agent, or a good customer, who will eventually buy a property through them and thus will contribute to their income? Will the best of those agents have time for someone who is working with everybody else?
Finally, does it matter if the agent of your choice is a REALTOR or not? It does. Anybody who has a real estate license and is affiliated with a real estate broker can sell you real property. The REALTORS are those agents who chose to subscribe to a certain code of ethics, and to follow strict rules telling them how to treat you. It is something like the Better Business Bureau, just specific to Real Estate. They are also the only ones, who receive the Multiple Listing Books and complete computer data. All the agents affiliated with reputable agencies are REALTORS. But when you are dealing with an unknown agency, it never hurts to ask. Often they are REALTORS as well, occasionally though, you may meet some who are not, and who are not able to offer you certain services or guarantee a certain level of professionalism.
Overall, unless you have already located a property offered by its owner, and you feel capable of doing all the work that will guarantee your closing on the purchase, you may want to select a Realtor that you would be comfortable with.
Choosing a REALTOR is similar to hiring a lawyer or a doctor. You can use somebody's recommendation; you can call different offices, and interview different REALTORS, until you find one which you are happy with; you can tour the open houses until you meet a REALTOR you may want to work with; you may browse through different web pages and select someone; you may want to choose someone with professional designations; and of course you are more than welcome to contact me: Ida@Freimer.com, either because you would want to consider working with me, or for a suggestion who would suit your needs better.
You probably want someone who knows the town you are interested in, at least to some extent, who will return your phone calls within a short time, who will keep close attention to what is coming to the market, who will listen to your needs carefully, understand what you want, and not waste your time telling you all about what you do not want to hear.
The common misunderstanding is that REALTORS just help you to locate the property. While they do that too, their real work starts after you make an offer. They supervise everything from thereon to make sure that your deal will not fall apart, that you will be able to close on the transaction on time.
Therefore you probably want someone who is a good problem solver, who has experience with different crises that can arise: multiple offers, stubborn or dishonest seller, sellers who change their mind about selling, issues that can come up at the inspections.
A good agent will talk to the lawyers and bankers to make sure that everything is done properly, that someone does not forget when your closing is scheduled or does not realize that it is important to you to have a place to sleep on the closing night. This is not the work that you will see, and therefore, even more so, you want someone whom you can trust to do all that is necessary and more.
If you are a foreigner, you may want to choose someone who is trained to respect your culture, be open minded enough to understand the parts of your culture she or he is not familiar with, and someone who realizes what is the effect of the foreign exchange rates on your transaction. (Working with international clients is one of my specializations. Should I be unable to meet your needs, I would be happy to direct you to someone else who could.)
First of all do not avoid talking to different REALTORS. Whenever you call an office for some information, or you go to an open house, interview them, memorize their names, and decide whether you like them or not. A lot of agents you will meet will try to find out what your needs are - they need to know this, in order to volunteer the information about the properties that may interest you, and which you are not aware of.
Try in turn to find out something about them, how they work, what they have to offer, do they seem knowledgeable, can they solve difficult problems should any come up. If you like an agent set up an appointment in the office to find out more about him or her, if you do not, just tell him or her that you do not want to be called.
We are here to serve you when you need us, not to manipulate you in giving us your phone number, and to harass you with phone calls. Be clear about your goals. A good agent will give you the information about the property you asked for, whether you will commit to working with him or her or not.
Do not try to save the time by just looking at the properties. Take the time to explain to the agent what you want, both in the property and in an agent, take the time to decide whether you want to work with her or him. It will save you a lot of time later.
Second, take the time to choose the type of agency relationship you are involved with. Every agent has a contractual relationship with someone. In Massachusetts this relationship is assumed to be with the seller, unless decided otherwise. An agent who has a contract with the seller will work with you, and will treat you fairly, but will act in the seller's best interest. Some agents and some companies choose to offer only this type of representation. By choosing to work with them, you are choosing not to be represented. As long as you remember it, it can work just fine.
However, unless you have a good reason not to, you may want to consider the other type of agency relationship - buyer's representation. In order for you to be represented in a real estate transaction you will need to sign a contract with your agent. The agent will commit to reject all the contracts with the sellers of the properties you may want to buy or will ask you for certain exclusions from this, to make your interests the most important and to negotiate on your behalf, to keep all your personal information confidential (which may strengthen your negotiating position), and more.
You, in turn, will need to commit to be working with this agent exclusively (unless, of course, the agent cannot provide good services in all towns you are shopping in, when you would formulate an exclusion), to disclose to the agent enough of the financial information about how you can structure your payment, and to foresee that the agent's fee will get paid (in 100% of my past buyer brokerage transactions the seller paid my fee, and it did not affect the purchase price; yet there may be situations when the buyer may prefer to pay it - ask your agent for the details before signing a contract).
Buyer's representation is more difficult and requires more work on the part of your agent, yet a lot of agents offer it, since it is more natural. They represent the buyer they know, rather that the seller they never met and do not know the name of. There are agents and companies who offer buyer's representation exclusively, others, who offer seller's representation exclusively; there are also those, who offer both. I specialize in representing the buyers, but occasionally, when the buyer chooses it, I represent the sellers.
Third, keep your agent posted on your changing interests or needs. It is important that this relationship works for both of you. Your agent may end up being your Real Estate advisor for life.