What to look for in a realtor?

[EddieWalker]

Something else that I forgot to mention, but others dealing with a realtor should know. As a contractor, I Facebook Friend as many people as I can to market myself. Realtors do the same thing. When a person hires a Realtor and eventually buys a house or property, a lot of the time they ask their realtor for advice on who to hire to do repairs, upgrades and remodels. I've never met most of the Realtors that I'm Facebook Friends with, but they recommend me to their clients all the time. Overall, these are my worse leads because most home buyers are broke after buying the house and really can't afford to hire me to do what they want, so we meet, look at the house and I give them a written bid. I never hear from most of them again. But what is interesting to me is that so many realtors provide recommendations to their clients to people that they have never met in person.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^^
A realtor's job is to sell real estate, I've never found them to be big on details. We are supposed to an approved septic before moving into a new house in this state. You can probably get away with putting in a bootleg system or hooking up to something undocumented in smaller towns, but when it comes time to sell to somebody who is financing, you're SOL. I've been looking at small lots which are more conveniently located for work, where I could just build a garage with small attached living area. There is a plethora of old MH lots out there advertising "Well and septic" and priced accordingly, yet when I ask a realtor they provide me with somebody who can "inspect the system"... who just happens to be the person who designed my system, and also explained to me just what I just stated above.

 

[Jim Nelson]

We have a property about 15 miles North of our current home. We used to live on that property until the area just grew too much and became unbearable for me. The general area is becoming a growing medical area with 3 new hospitals and some medical office buildings and interest by investors is growing. A real estate agent with one of the large national agencies contacted us with an interesting proposal so we arranged a meeting with him. As we were driving around the parking lot a car zoomed in and took the last spot and this slicked up dude got out of it and headed for the office building.I told my wife that was probably the agent we were going to meet and she said "I hope not,he
looks like a New York pimp".
Well it was him and he started out telling us how wonderful and brilliant he is then explained how he had investors interested in our property and that we needed to sign a 1 year listing with him. I said no, if you have people that interested just set up a meeting and we will work it out. He got all huffy and told me that I didn't understand how the business works,I stopped him right then and told him that we were talking about property that belonged to us free and clear and if he was interested in relieving us of part of the proceeds from the sale of it we were doing it our way. We got 2 or 3 calls later from one of his underlings saying they had a new hot customer lined up and I again explained how to proceed and that is still where it stands. We know that the market isn't quite right yet and when it gets there we will definitely have a different realtor representing us.

There are some good realtors out there but a lot of parasites too, you have to know where you stand and be careful.

 

[Travelover]

A year before we decided to sell we hired an appraiser. We sold the property for $225K. It appraised at $193K. Yeah, we probly sold it too cheap.....

.......... No appraisal. ..........

Oh, so you actually did have an appraisal.

 

[Sigarms]

Anyone can do that, just sell it below market price. The trick is to get the maximum price in the minimum amount of time.

When my wife and I were cleaning up my dad's house (after we signed with a realtor) a guy stopped by and offered us cash, no financing to buy the house. About 50% less than what my dad got through the realtor.

This is one of those guys who talked to me and my wife as he stopped us as we were driving out of driveway just "talking to us" and it took me about 20 minutes to finally say "how much" (as me and the misses were hungry and wanted to eat and I didn't have time for BSin). Took him aback when I asked a direct question (the only reason he was making small talk was to see if we'd sell him the houst). My dad knew this guy as well as he lived in "the fancy" development up the hill. My dad couldn't stand him as he built a small "you store it" complex down the road from him and kind of pissed him (my dad) off even when he (my dad) was on the town council.

 

[Sigarms]

Something else that I forgot to mention, but others dealing with a realtor should know. As a contractor, I Facebook Friend as many people as I can to market myself. Realtors do the same thing.

Facebook friends are a dime a dozen. The key IMO is the reviews left for those realtors on facebook.

Facebook only tells me that you really don't have a clue on how to market your company and you're doing it the cheapest way possible, which every can do.

 

[two_bit_score]

Oh, so you actually did have an appraisal.

I took it to mean that he didn’t have an appraisal to contend with on his sale to the buyers.

 

[dragoneggs]

Facebook only tells me that you really don't have a clue on how to market your company and you're doing it the cheapest way possible, which every can do.

I wouldn't go that far... Facebook is just one other avenue for marketing. If that is your only path, then yes, you are not approaching it right. Good companies know where their leads come from and as Eddie said, understanding where your potential client is coming from is key to assessing the work.

 

[ovrszd]

Oh, so you actually did have an appraisal.

Not in regards to the sale. No one asked for one and no one asked to see ours.

It was mentioned that it's easy to sell at a price lower than the property value without needing a Realtor. I simply explained that we sold above appraised value without a Realtor.

 

[Slowpoke Slim]

My experiences mirror Eddie Walker's. With the exception that I've never had the "good" realtor. Only bad ones. Some were just pathetic, but all were "bad".

We're currently looking to buy a rural place farther out of town (this area is too built up, and growing FAST). We want a few more acres (more is better), but the house has to be "livable" as is. Meaning we can just grab the keys and move into the house on closing. I don't mind doing some remodeling, or home improvements, don't mind painting, etc. But we don't want to move into a wreck.

Anyway, first contact with our "new" realtor, young kid, first property we met him at, he didn't know *anything* about the property he was showing us. Basically just unlocked the door and followed us around. I'm thinking "Great, another beauty". Second property the kid kind of learned his lesson a little. He did some research, printed off the MLS flyer, arrived early and looked at the place before we got there, spoke to the owner (who was unfortunately home, and followed us around close as a shadow EVERYWHERE we went when we walked the place, which I found annoying).

So maybe this new "kid" will be a "good" one? I'm really just hoping he's not "terribad".

I've always thought (from previous experiences) that realtors were people that failed at every. single. type. of. job. they've ever done before, and the only thing left was "Realtor".

At least this one answers his phone.

The property we looked at last night was at least close to what we were looking for. It needs exterior siding, carpet/flooring, a retaining wall around the back side of the house, and the whole deck off the side of the upper floor (split level) needs to be taken down and replaced. Basement is unfinished, but it has good bones. It's been on the market a long time, and the price has started dropping in earnest (they just came down $20K all in one go), but not sure if it will drop far enough to cover the siding costs.

Owners are elderly couple with new medical problems, and they need to move back into town. I seriously doubt they have any money to put into repairs around the house. From walking it, it just looks like they never did any upkeep at all as the years went by. Gutters leak, wood around basement exterior needs paint (ok, past paint, needs new wood now, but paint would have taken care of it about 5-10 years ago), kitchen counter top delaminated off one corner, and probably home owner just squeezed a bunch of rtv into it and called it good, ran drywall screws into the siding where it was lifting away from the wall and covered the whole area with rtv. Just stuff like that.