Buying a home is a team effort. It takes more than just looking on the market to find a home. One of the most significant parts of that team is the realtor that you choose. Recommendations will come far, and wide once family and friends find out that you are thinking about buying a home. Through reviews and online research, it is not hard to find a good agent. There are plenty of them out there, and this post is not about finding a realtor. It is about putting trust in the realtor that you choose to work for you. This post will focus on the transaction's selling side (the buyer's agent), but many ideas can be applied to the transaction's listing side.
First of all, congratulations on deciding to purchase a home. It is no small task and comes with many challenges along the way. But that first step is deciding to buy. Now is the time to focus and find that perfect house for you or your family. Once the ideal home is located, the real fun begins. This is the agent's time to shine and start putting in the actual work that gets you the home. The "behind the scenes" action taking place are vast. Agents begin making calls to the listing agent, calling the lender to get an inside scoop, finding comparable properties, gathering stats on the neighborhood, finding current pricing activity in the area, and putting it all together in a comprehensive package for clients to read and digest.
Depending on when the offer date is, these actions can seem to take a long time. But please have faith in your realtor as they go through this process. I want clients to understand buying a home is not easy, and it is not always straightforward. Just because the house is listed for one price does not mean the home is worth that value or will sell for that price. Many times, especially right now, homes are being listed under market value to drive the price up, create a bidding war, and of course to let the agent brag about how many offers they got and how much "over" the asking price they received.
It is important to consider all agent recommendations from family and friends, but it is even more important to pick the agent you feel you can trust. You need to trust that your agent is working hard on those "behind the scenes" activities and giving you the best information. If you are not feeling the trust, then the likelihood of you second-guessing what your agent is telling you is super high. In a competitive market, both the agent and the client must trust one another to make a deal happen.
Consider this. Your agent shows you a home that you love, and you decide that you would like to make an offer on that home. The offer deadline for that house is 3 days away. So, your agent says, "No problem! I will get to work and let you know what I find." In the current market, there are very few to NO comparable homes. That is due to the speed at which homes are selling and the lack of inventory on the market. So, your agent will spend more time figuring out the neighborhood's stats and looking at price growths. Does this mean your agent will be able to predict the winning price? No, but it will give them an idea of where to start and strike up a conversation with the listing agent about the home. Having your agent connect with the other agent will help your offer stand out. I have had clients not put in the highest bid but still win the property because the listing agent felt that I would be better to work with through the transaction.
If you don't remember anything else from this post, remember this. Your agent has your back and has been doing their job. All the "behind the scenes" stuff we spoke about earlier has been worked out, and a plan is in place. Your lender, the listing agent, and now you all know your winning strategy. Trust your agent to go to work for you. Your agent is the one person who knows both sides of the story long before you do. They know what you want and are willing to do, and they are trying to match that up with what the seller is expecting. There are many moving parts, and some of those are out of your agent's control, such as other agents.
Agents are all playing with similar strategies, so a lot of the information needed to make an offer starts to become available the closer it comes to the offer date. So again, please trust your agent to be doing the right things to get the information needed to make an offer.
Once your agent comes to you with a plan, take them seriously and listen to what they say. They have been working on this plan for a couple of days and it may not be the plan you expect. Trust that your agent gives you the winning plan, even if it's a price point or strategy that may not be the most appealing to you. Pricing is usually the hardest for an agent to determine and the hardest to present. But when your agent gives you a price point, remember it is not them buying this house, it is you. Agents are here to arm you with a winning strategy, and the price is the ultimate determining factor.
Yes, you have seen the comparable property list, and you have seen the neighborhood report. Those two items may not reach the number your agent is asking you to pay. Your agent has put in the work and has a good idea of where the home will sell. The price you got from your agent is that price.
Trust your agent.