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Finding a Realtor (endless locations)
Hi Everyone! After looking at a lot of different OH, we are definitely for a realtor. However, we are still all over the map for location-- we basically just want to be near a train that can bring us in the city in under an hour, so it doesn't matter if it's north, west or south of our city. We're tending to look more south, and southwest just because their are more listings and there more affordable than the other areas. We liked a realtor at an OH that's south of the city. According to his profile, his "areas" are all south. Do you think it's worth interviewing to see if he'd show us other places if we find something not in his "zone"? Should we work with multiple realtors that cover multiple zones? How will contracting with a realtor work? Should we just try to limit our location? How far will realtors travel.... any thoughts/experiences/advice. Thanks!!! Not sure the best way to handle this 
Re: Finding a Realtor (endless locations)
Interviewing him is a good idea. We are on our second realtor because we didn't take the time to do our homework on the first. The first realtor we went with was randomly assigned to us through the companies websites and we meet her once at an OH. In the end, she was nuts and not for us! We have someone way better now and really like her. I would also suggest you ask friends and family for recommendations. The realtor we are currently working with was from a recommendation of an individual at my work.
As far as working with more than one realtor, I doubt a realtor would encourage or be okay with that. Likely before they will take you serious and invest much time in you will you need to sign a buyers agency agreement with them. The agreement states you agree to see houses with them and allow them to be paid for finding you a home. Make sure you read it and understand it fully! Generally, it should say if you owe them any fees and what your options are for getting out if you decided not to buy or don't like the realtor in a few months.
One suggestion I would make is to really try to narrow your search. I know nothing about your area but in our market there are a large amount of well-priced, wonderfully looking homes in an area. However, we know that crime is high in those areas and that's likely why there are so many houses for sale in that area. The area is also full of college students and a large amount of rentals. Do your homework on the areas and make sure you are in an area that has good re-sale value as well as an area that you like and that is safe. It's been tough for us because a majority of the homes in our price range are in this "bad" area. We refuse to even go and look at them.
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I think you'll have better luck if you narrow your search area. Have you looked at the quality of the school districts and if there are any major variations in property taxes between the areas? Where we are the real estate "customs" vary from neighborhood to neighborhood and it's better to work with an agent who is in the know on that stuff.
I really don't think you can work with multiple agents - if you try you could run into a sticky situation with procuring cause.
We got our agent through the broker's relocation system. We were friends with an agent in another area who referred us and we were assigned to an agent in our area after our friend interviewed her on our behalf. The cool thing about this is that if we decided we didn't like her, our friend would have found us a new one right away and the contract wouldn't be an issue as long as we stayed within the same company.
When we were looking for our first home, we used a realtor who was based about 45 minutes outside of our target area. Some friends had used him to purchase a house in his "normal" area and recommended him to us. While he was happy to assist us, I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing what we did. The area where we were looking is generally more expensive than his normal area, so we missed out on some houses towards the beginning because he would advise us that the house was worth X but really, in this area, it was worth a lot more (and other people who were bidding against us realized that). Also, it was difficult to coordinate his schedule to drive to meet us at the houses, which also resulted in us losing some houses. In your situation, however, it sounds like you'll be looking all over the map so you could run into this scenario with anyone.
Edited by moderator.