[quote=drboom][quote=sdrealtor]Pretty much every buyer that has tried to go direct to me as a listing agent has been an utter waste of my time. When I have a lisitng I know I’ll get paid on one side which is enough for me. I’d rather spend my time trying to help buyers I know, like and respect. I’ve yet to meet one of those who tried to go direct. They all seem to have hidden agendasa that i dont have time for. They seem to like to think they are smarter than agents and figure than can outsmart us by going direct. Of course, thats not true and I know they are pulling the same pile of *(&(*& with a dozen other agents that they are calling also. I say good luck to them. Your quote that “I would expect that person to be more knowledgeable than an average buyer” is exactly the attitude I see from them. The smartest buyers have the best representation not NO representation.
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Let me offer a counterpoint: my wife and I had a bunch of buyer’s agents blow smoke up our posteriors, including a member of my wife’s family who is a 20 year RE veteran. We couldn’t trust any of them, so I represented us through our first six months of serious shopping. There were some agents who didn’t want to have anything to do with me. Their loss. Others were cool with it and worked with me.
Long story short, we had a short sale that fell apart in the approval process (stupid BofA: the house is still vacant and on their books 18 months later). The seller’s agent on that deal asked us if we were interested in having him represent us on a 50% commission split; he knew we had the research squared away and that we wouldn’t waste his time. He’d proven himself to be a true professional throughout the deal, so we were happy to engage him. I’ve told the story elsewhere, but the short of it is that he showed us exactly one house and wrote exactly one offer (OK, and one counter) for us. The sale closed three months later (short sale). Easy money.
I understand you have to play the odds, but realize that some buyers might not have an agent precisely because they are serious and feel that too many in the RE biz do not act in their best interests.
Or maybe we’re just unique, like delicate snowflakes. :-)[/quote]
I’m with drboom. While some **good** longtime agents are worth their commissions, so many of them are transplants from somewhere else or are new to the business and know far less than an educated buyer. Many agents are simply stupid, and don’t bring anything at all to the table. Not all buyers are idiots; some are far more familiar with the territory, demographic trends, and pricing history than many agents.
We’ve seen fairly large mistakes made on contracts, and have known agents who had absolutely no local knowledge about certain neighborhoods or tracts. We’ve also had agents who lost deals for us, so I’m not at all impressed with agents, as a rule. Need we even bring up what most agents were telling their buyers during the 2003-2007 era? (Bid higher, higher, higher!)
The only reason we’re not FBs is because I did my own research. There wasn’t a single agent out there who told us not to buy during the bubble (I know some here did so, but trust me, there were very few agents telling people about the bubble).
