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If you're in the
market for a home or property, you may think the real
estate agent who chauffeurs you around town is looking
out for your best interests. Don't bet on it!
In the traditional way of
selling houses, both the agent who lists the property
and the one who brings a buyer to the table are legally
working for the seller. Even if "your" agent
learns that the seller is willing to cut the price or
pay some of the closing costs, you may be kept in the
dark. At the same time, information you give to
"your" agent such as how much you really can
afford and how soon you need to buy, must be reported
back to the sellers, giving them a negotiating
advantage.
In this system, the odds
are stacked against the buyer.
That's why more
and more buyers are getting their own agents to help
them find the right property, negotiate the best
possible deal, and close with the least amount of
hassle. These agents, called Exclusive Buyer Agents,
are licensed real estate agents. They have
access to all of the usual resources used to find
houses, including the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), as
well as sources not usually accessible to traditional
agents, such as homes for sale by owner and
foreclosures. But there is one very big difference
between traditional agents and Exclusive Buyer Agents:
the Exclusive Buyer Agent represents the buyer and is
legally bound to get the best deal possible for the
buyer. Exclusive Buyer Agents do not represent sellers; they
do not list homes for sale. This exclusive
agency is the kind of representation buyers have when
Buyer #1 is working for the buyer.
As more people use
Exclusive Buyer Agents, there's mounting evidence that
the old-fashioned way simply doesn't get buyers the best
deal. When U.S. Sprint studied the home purchases of
relocating employees, it found that those who
worked with traditional real estate agents ended up
paying about 5% more than those who used Buyer Agents.
On a $200,000 property, that's $10,000 of the buyer's
money wasted.
The trend toward equal
representation is proving unstoppable. Consumer
advocates (including Money magazine, The National Home
Buying Institute, and syndicated real estate columnist
Robert Bruss) have gone on record urging consumers to
seek buyer representation in purchasing a home.
Exclusive Buyer Agents nationwide have formed the
National Association of Exclusive Buyer Agents (NAEBA)
to educate consumers and to help them find an exclusive
buyer broker anywhere in the country.
Texas now has a condition
called intermediary agency where the agent can
designate one agent to represent the seller and another
to represent the buyer if the buyer is interested in a
company listing. In this situation, neither side is
fully represented. Buyers who wanted to be represented
from the start are often led into this condition without
realizing they are agreeing to give up some of the
advantages of buyer representation.
That means the
only way for buyers to ensure they'll have a crack at
every house available that meets their needs AND have an
advocate all the way through the deal, is to work with a
brokerage like Buyer#1 that only represents buyers .
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