We are a listing brokerage, but, like any successful real estate firm, we also represent buyers. While we have particular competence in the listing and marketing of homes for sale, we are also successful in helping buyers find homes to buy, get them under contract, and then shepherd those buyers through closing and move-in, all the while bringing our years of experience and acquired competence to each stage of the process.
We know that, first of all, buyers’ agents need to be good listeners — find out what’s important to the buyer. That can and does vary from buyer to buyer. In this article, I’ll describe what I’ve found is typically important beyond those very personal needs and wants.
Buyers need and want to know what the real estate market is like and what their money can buy. The best way to learn that, I’ve found, is to set up an MLS email alert early on, matching their search criteria.
While buyers can do their own searching on consumer-facing websites, not all MLS fields are search-able unless you’re a member of the MLS. A good example of that is searching for a main-floor primary suite. That is not a searchable field on any consumer website that I’m aware of. On Zillow you can search for single-story homes, but many 2-story homes also have main-floor primary suites.
Think of other features important to you. Almost every MLS field can be a search criterion, but only for an MLS member agent, who can include them in an MLS alert that he or she sets up for you.
Do you want a fenced yard? RV parking? Do you want mountain and/or city views? Solar panels? A particular elementary school?
You can receive an alert about homes matching your personalized search criteria as soon as they go on the market. Daily or monthly emails are also an option.
Such MLS alerts can give the buyer a sense of the market, whether or not he/she is ready to start looking at homes and/or make an offer on one they like.
Financing is critical, of course, and a buyer’s agent needs to know the financial capabilities and limitations of his or her buyer and have an excellent loan officer who can let the buyer and agent know the price range for which the buyer is qualified. Some loan officers, such as ours, are more creative than others at solving problems and matching a buyer with the best loan.
Knowing whether a particular home is priced correctly and what a proper offering price would be is important to any buyer. When you find a home you want to buy, we have three valuation tools, not just Zillow, that can provide guidance on what a proper offer should be. What did comparable homes sell for, how long were they on the market, and did they sell above or below the listing price? That’s easy for us to research and show you.
If you have lost bidding wars and don’t want that to be in another one, you can ask your agent to send only listings that have been on the market more than a week or 10 days. By then the chance of competing with other buyers is much reduced.
Homes in newer subdivisions may have significantly higher property taxes because they are in a metropolitan tax district. Although the MLS displayus the property tax for each listing, it doesn’t include the all-important mill levy. The tax rate for a home in a metropolitan tax district can be up to double that of a home outside that tax district, and we can make sure you know when that’s the case.
Some buyers, especially those with RVs, want to avoid listings that are in an HOA that limits RV parking. That’s another criterion that can be specified in email alerts, as is the availability of on-site RV parking.
These are just some of the things which we have found are important to homebuyers. What’s important to you? Knowing the value of an experienced agent in helping you find homes which meet your needs is a good reason to work with one of us at Golden Real Estate.
Jim Smith's Blog 