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Etiquette for ditching your realtor
My husband and I have been working with a realtor for several months now and are getting more and more frustrated. The only houses that we've seen so far and liked are houses we found ourselves and asked her to show us. She seems to send us the same (crappy) listings over and over. The market here is CRAZY right now, and we've had several houses fall out from underneath us or get sold before we could even see them! (seriously, the good ones sell within a day or two of being put on the market) Our realtor is not aggressive at all, at finding houses quickly or helping us negotiate, and it seems like if we're going to get a house we like, in our price range, we will need to be very aggressive about it. She also provides no insight when seeing a house or writing an offer. As first time homebuyers, we could really use someone being truthful with us about things we might not even think of when buying a house.
I feel terribly guilty about it, (don't like conflict) but my husband really wants to ditch her and try someone else. What do you think?
Re: Etiquette for ditching your realtor
We dtiched our realtor. We felt she didn't know the areas we were interested in well, and also she was showing us homes that were her "taste" more than our own.
the icing on the cake was when my husband and I were looking at a home i LOVED and he said he got a "weird feeling" from it and she started to tell him about ghosts in the house and how she truely believed if you had a bad feeling there were ghosts. I know my husband meant the way it was set up and the decor weirded him out. but she read it a totally different way and it soured us to the home.
She was also slow to move on things.
So I simply sent her and email saying we have put our home search on hold. None of her listings are anyting we'd be intersted in, so we never run into her, and its fine. If we happened to run into her, I would simply say we decided to start looking again and are using a family friend's recommendation for a realtor and leave it at that.
We changed realtors and ended up with someone that is really popular and known as being a great agent. She is really aggressive, but I have to say she isn't as friendly or nice as our first agent. So I guess the grass isn't always greener. Because she is so so popular she is really busy and her emails are short and to the point. There is no caressing our first time home buyer egos, or babying us at all--she is very no nonesense. She is great though when we look at homes-- she points out things i wouldn't have ever noticed and you can tell she is experienced and well versed in the industry.
On another note, house hunting now and house hunting 10 years ago is very different. Most agents send you mls listnings and expect you to go through them, do drive bys etc. then make a list of properties you want to see. Both agents we worked with were like this. This allows them to help you narrow the search- but sometimes it can make you feel like youa re doing the leg work. But think about it, ten years ago you might not have been able to look at 100 homes a day online to narrow it down, so thats the better side of it all.
If there is a home we really want to see I am sure to send an email asap..and explain that we need to get into that home within 24 hrs.
Sorry to hear you are having such a terrible time with your agent.
Did you sign a Buyer's Agreement with her? We always tell our clients, if they are unhappy after signing it to just let us know. It's like any relationship - if it's not working, it's time to move on.
I send my clients listings that match their criteria. It send them out automatically and we keep the parameters sometimes rather vague - as when agents load their listings they may mark things incorrectly. This does let some crap seep through, but sometimes prevents the good stuff from not being sent to my buyers.
I have clients who like to look on Zillow, Trulia, etc - problem is those homes are generally already sold or under contract - as those websites are not as current as our direct MLS system.
My DH and I encourage open communication ALWAYS with our clients.
Another thing- if you were (by chance) to offer on a home that your current agent showed you, she'd be entitled to the commission - it's call procuring cause. Be sure to avoid this situation - even if you call the realtor on the sign to show you a property.
Good luck and PM me if you have questions, I'd be happy to help if I can.