Met my friend at church this Sunday and learned that the house they wanted to buy in Alpharetta didn't work out. The same agent helped them find a second option but the negotiation sounded like a ripper. The seller has to stay for two more months in their house and wanted to sell it now and have asked my friend and his wife to pay for the two months mortgage till they get out. Obviously their agent is not good at all.
I suggested to my friend that he should start looking to work with other agent(s). What I did when I was looking for a house was to start working with two agents. They both showed many great houses. One of them had over 20 years of experience and she knows well her job. The other he just started 4 years ago. The former tried to dig as much as information from me as she can. She asked about my hobbies, lifestyle, and the criteria I wanted for a house. What I liked about her is she did what I wanted her to do. I wanted her to look for a house within my budget but has to start looking closer to where I work and then search away from the city till she find some houses that I can look at. We looked at about 30 houses with different styles, floor plan, landscape, neighborhood, you name it. The other agent somehow made it clear he's not as experienced as the other, he didn't ask alot of questions. So I chose the lady agent. It helped me alot to know what I want because of her many questions.
She also educated me about the best sidings, best floorings, symptoms of bad and good roofs, lightings and fixtures, paints, kitchen style, garage doors and every aspect of the house may it be inside or outside that would increase the value/resale of the house. It was all good and she prepared me enough in the future in case I will be buying a house again.
There's no restriction as to how many agents you can work with but not until you decide to put an offer on a house and agree to work with an agent exclusively. This gives you a better situation as to choosing who's providing you better service and promoting competition between them.
From what I remember this is what we did with my agent.
1. Worked with a financial officer to determine how much I can afford. He suggested I can
use 80% of my income to buy a house but in my mind it was ridiculous. There's just so much
things I need to pay for and I'm not gonna dedicate my savings in paying my mortgage.
2. Identified my budget in a given range. I chose to dedicate 35% of my income for the
mortgage.
3. Choose geographic location
4. Scheduled bi-weekly tours to houses on sale with different floor plans.
5. Visited both houses on sale and on foreclosure. Foreclosed houses seems to have more things
to be fixed and not worth it and its sold as is.
6. After checking 30 houses, we chose my top 5 and visited them again until I end up with the
one best suited my taste and needs.
I'm really glad I worked with an agent who knows what she's doing and I would definitely recommend working with an agent who's got a lot of years of experience.
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