Step 1 | Hire a Realtor | How to Buy a Home | Murrieta Ca

What’s the first step to buying a home? Hiring a realtor! It matters who you work with. Here are some tips on how to hire a great realtor so you can have a positive experience, and we are starting right now. 

Hi, I’m Jessica Genung with Realty One Group Southwest. If this is your first time stopping by my channel please consider subscribing right down here. So let’s get right to it. As a home buyer the buyer’s agent Commission is paid for almost always by the seller. This means that your representation costs you nothing. Here is how to hire a great agent. 

Tip number one: Hire an agent that LIKES to work with buyers. Sounds like a no-brainer right? Well I’m going to tell you a little secret in the real estate business. A big percentage of agents do not want to work with buyers. They only want to work with sellers and sell listings. There’s a saying in the business. “List to Live.” 

A listing means the agent is listing or selling the property of a current homeowner. Listings take less time and are generally less work than working with buyers. An agent can have 20 listings in one month, but a single person can certainly not work with 20 buyers in one month. If you’re considering an agent that sells like a hundred properties a year just be aware that they’re likely not going to be focused on your needs as a buyer personally, they are going to be delegating that responsibility to a team member, often called a buyer specialist. Now this buyer specialist or buyer’s agent that they’re going to delegate you to, they may be a great fit, they may be an awesome agent, but I just think that you should be aware and also interview and research that person that you’re going to be working with directly, so that you can make sure that you’re the decision-maker on who you choose to be your agent. 

The good news is there are certainly agents out there that LOVE to work with buyers. Here’s a tip on how to find them. Let’s say you’re considering a specific agent. Maybe you meet this agent at an open house by the way an open house is a great place to meet an agent. Often agents that are sitting open houses are doing it because they want to meet buyers like you. 

Sometimes when business or the market gets slow, a listing agent will take on a buyer client, sometimes reluctantly. Then if their business picks up, they might pass that buyer off to a buyer’s agent. Oftentimes after working with that previous agent for who knows how long, the buyer is not very happy about that, so that’s not a great situation. 

Let me tell you a story that happened to me just this week. An agent was showing my listing in Murietta, and I texted him after the showing because I always request feedback from their buyers so that I can pass that along to my seller. He said they didn’t like the house for whatever reason, and that these buyers were very picky and that he was about to be handing them off to a buyer’s agent. 

And then he followed that up you know he’s texting me this and he followed that up by that little smiley face emoji with the black sunglasses, you know like he’s too cool to work with buyers. 

Bummer for those buyers whose agent is basically quitting on them. But maybe if they had looked at these tips they would have been able to better select an agent that likes to work with buyers. 

Check out his or her Zillow page. Go onto Zillow.com. Click on Agent Finder at the top. Type in the name of the agent and go to their profile page. Now that you’re on their profile page, browse through their recent activity. You want to see a good amount of buyer side transactions. A mix of listings and buyer side transactions is great. 

What you don’t want to see is seller, seller, seller, seller, the very occasional buyer. You know four out of five being a seller, five out of six being a seller, you don’t want to see you know those kind of lopsided numbers. 

Choose an agent that has the heart of a teacher. Now I know I sound like Dave Ramsey here but it is so important that you choose an agent that is patient and that enjoys spending time and taking the time to get to know their clients needs and educating them on the many complexities of a real estate transaction. This person, they should enjoy educating their clients. 

It’s similar to when you go to the doctor. We’ve all had that experience at the doctor, when it seems like that you’ve been waiting in the waiting room forever and the doctor finally gets to you and you’re super rushed and you can’t even remember all the questions that you had to ask. And it just seem like  they’re worried about getting to the next patient in the next room because they’re just too busy. 

Contrast that common scenario to when you go to a good doctor, that’s fully engaged and takes a lot of time to understand your concerns and to answer all of your questions. 

Similarly a good agent is going to invite you into their office for what we call a buyer consultation. A buyer consultation is so important to take the time to do this. They’re going to sit down with you, they are going to go over the entire home buying process, they are going to give you a complete market overview, and they are going to dig deep to try to find out so they can fully understand what it is exactly that you and your family are looking for in your new home. 

This time spent upfront can be the difference between a positive and a negative and lengthy home buying experience. This also gives you a chance to get to know the realtor before you decide you want to hire them. I hope these tips have been helpful and informative. This is the first of eight home buying steps that I’ll be discussing over the next few weeks. 

If you would like a copy of the 8 steps that I’m going to be detailing, I’ll be happy to send that to you. I’ve included a link in the description below. Thanks so much for watching my video and don’t forget to subscribe right down here. 

Thank you so much. Bye!