Why Use a Buyer’s Agent

Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions of your life and a licensed Realtor® can help you get through it with ease. It’s a serious transaction with significant financial and emotional ramifications for the parties involved, and having proper representation is critical.  Here are six of the most important reasons to have a buying partner on your side:

1: Search power

The only way to determine the fair price of a home is to analyze the price at which similar homes recently sold in the same neighborhood.  While there are a variety of online resources for finding homes for sale, but there are very few consumer websites that provide actual home sale price data in the Houston-area.  We are one of the few real estate companies that provides home sale prices to our clients. This information is available to licensed Realtors® through their membership with the our local Multiple Listing Service.  While many buyers look to Zillow for this information, Zillow does not have the actual prices of homes that sold in the Houston-area. So in Texas, a “Zestimate” is rarely accurate.

2: Real estate expertise

Realtor® expertise and training comes into play when they are negotiating on your behalf. They often have intimate knowledge of the pros and cons of similar homes that recently sold that can no longer be seen online.  Once you are under contract to purchase a home, a buyer’s agent will help you locate a great inspector, negotiate repairs with the seller, get estimates from trustworthy contractors and obtain financing from the most reputable lenders.

3: Understanding of the language

Buying a home usually requires dozens of forms, reports, disclosures, and other technical documents full of acronyms and jargon.  Trained Realtors® have the expertise to help you navigate through the terms, data and language —while avoiding delays or costly mistakes that can seriously cost you money and time. Also, they must stay current with all the updates in regulations, laws, contracts and practices. Once you retain your Realtor®, they put that knowledge to work for you.

4: Representation

Unless you are buying a property that is for sale by owner, the seller has professional representation on their side.  By negotiating directly with the seller’s agent you are putting yourself at a severe disadvantage since their agent is legally bound to share everything you tell them in order to get the best deal for their client.

5: Licensing and ethics

Not every real estate agent is a Realtor®, who is a licensed real estate salesperson who belongs to the National Association of Realtors®, the largest trade group in the country.  Realtors® are held to a higher ethical standard than licensed agents and must adhere to a Code of Ethics.