RELATED ARTICLES

Important Terms Concerning Representation

The Benefits of Using Just One Agent

What Will Make You Happy

You’re about to make the biggest investment you've ever made. An agent has gotten you to agree to meet him or her at their office for your initial meeting.  This is the time that the most time consuming mistake an agent and buyer can make will normally happen. A buyer’s natural inclination is to get through that first meeting quickly, because they're eager to go out and look at houses.  The agent’s natural inclination is to go along with the buyer on this, because they don't want to upset the buyer.  But that hour they saved the first day can add 50 hours to their property search.

Buyers will tell their agents they want a Victorian-style house out in the country with a big yard on a quiet street close to a country flea market to satisfy their obsession with collecting things, but will buy a townhouse in the city on a main drag with no yard at all, because they find a flea market in the city that fulfills everything they really enjoy doing.  You as a buyer have to figure out what is really going to make you happy.

If an agent doesn’t start finding out what you really want until they are showing you houses, they will find out one item at a time what you don’t like.  This tends to be a far more time-consuming process than most people would realize.  In addition, it may begin a pattern where the buyer is not communicating with the agent, so the only thing they may find out is that the buyer didn’t like the house, without finding out why.  This means the agent will continue to show the buyer houses that they aren’t happy with, until the buyer is completely exhausted with the search.

©2001 Douglas R. Barry

  Doug Barry
  LONG & FOSTER REAL ESTATE, INC.

  Direct 410-207-4751
  Office 410-823-8111
  Doug@RealtyComplete.com