Top Ten List: Mistakes Marin County Buyers Make, Part III
Here’s Mistakes No. 7 and No. 8 that buyers commonly make.
7. Not using their agent correctly. Get a smart, hard-working agent, and they’ll move mountains for you, if you know how to work with them. This may be worth a whole other post, but here are the essentials.
First, be honest and open. Can’t live with something in a home,or hate the Bayside of Corte Madera? Tell us! Don’t really want a mortgage that large? Fine, let’s talk about it upfront, so we’re focusing on the right price level.
Second, communicate, early and often. If a client doesn’t reply to emails or phone calls, we interpret that as losing interest or or a chand in goals, and the client falls off the radar screen. Then when the client calls, we haven’t been following up as aggressively as we should, and no one is happy.So that house in Kentfield that we would have seen last Thursday on Broker’s Tour may have been skipped.
Third, use everyone’s time wisely. The best way for a buyer to see homes early in the process is to drive around to as many open houses as possible, without an agent. Why? Chances are they’ll write off half of them as soon as they pull up, because of neighborhood, curb appeal, or something intangible they can’t even identify. Maybe you’ll decide San Anselmo is just too far to drive, or Mill Valley is too foggy. Spend three hours viewing open houses on Sunday, and most people can probably see 10-12 homes, easy. Do it with me taking the client there, and we’ll see half that many, because we’ll have appointments, etc. By the way, call first - and I can tell you which homes to see, which to ignore, and the fastest way to do it on a Sunday. We set up open house tours for clients all of the time.
Don’t misinterpret this: I’m love spending time with clients and showing property. Once we’ve calibrated a bit, and understand likes and dislikes, I can really focus on places that fit your criteria.
8. Thinking they’ll get a better deal by working directly with the listing agent. This happens a lot. Buyers figure they’ll work with the listing agent directly, and because the agent gets both sides of the deal, they’ll have an inside track on getting what they want.
Nothing could be further from the truth. First, by law and by the Realtor Code of Ethics, the listing agent’s primary fiduciary responsibility is to the seller. It will never be the buyer - it can’t. So when it comes time to negotiate, and believe me, you will negotiate in this market - one agent is trying to work both sides. And guess what? They’re working for the seller, not you.
Reasons 9 and 10 next! I’m out of town so it is tougher to post, but I’m working on it!
