How Does a Buyers Agent Work?

What does a Buyers Agent do? Here are some practical tips on what a buyer’s agent does and what you should expect. Remember, one of the single most important decisions you will make is who you hire to help you find a home, negotiate the price and terms, and help you through the process of doing your due diligence. [By the way, I leave the apostrophe out of “Buyer’s Agent” because the search engines don’t recognize apostrophes. Apostrophes can actually cause a search to falsely show an error in the Google search engine. Remember that when you do your own Google searches. Never use apostrophes.]

Buyers Agent and Freedom

I had a new client recently ask me if I have a Buyers Agency Agreement that he needed to sign. The National Association of Exclusive Buyers Agents has been preaching for a couple of decades that a buyers agent should always have a buyer sign a written agreement so they cannot go off and hire another agent. The idea is to protect the commission. But I have a totally different perspective. I told my new client:

It would be my privilege to represent you, and I don’t ask my buyers to sign a buyers agency agreement. I believe trust is earned, and it is earned over time, so I want you to have the freedom to chose me as your buyers agent, and then as we work together, I want you to have the confidence that you’ve chosen right. That doesn’t come from a written agreement locking you into a relationship. It comes from me proving I am worthy of serving you as your buyers agent over a period of time.

Buyers Agent and Trust

The problem for a buyer if they sign a written buyers agency agreement before they’ve actually had an opportunity to work with an agent is that they may find out their buyers agent is incompetent or just not someone they want to work with, but a written agreement locks them into that relationship, or requires that they pay them a commission even if they chose to hire another buyers agent. The last thing you need when you’re buying your dream home is a nightmare in your first relationship with your Realtor®.

The Internet gives you tremendous power to do your research on buyers agents and on any Realtor® today. Take advantage of the Internet and it’s search capacity. Buyers have never had it so good in this regard.

There is a difference between an exclusive buyers agent and a buyers agent. The former only represents buyers and never represents sellers. That is me, Chuck Marunde. The reality is that if a listing agent has a buyer contact them directly, they will act as both a seller’s agent and a buyers agent. A buyers agent who primarily markets to buyers may have a local client say, “You have such a massive marketing system on the Internet, and you sell so many homes, I would like you to list my home. You reach more buyers than the traditional listing agents.” In such a case that buyers agent may become a listing agent for that one home. Nothing wrong with that, but I prefer to work exclusively for buyers.

I hope you’ll consider hiring me as your Exclusive Buyers Agent. Check out some of the over 2,200 articles on this blog, my Sequim-Homes.com MLS site, the many books I’ve written specifically for buyers [Sequim Real Estate Books]. All of these resources that I’ve been putting on the Internet for a dozen years, and which have taken me 40 years to acquire in real estate as a broker, including 20 years as a real estate attorney, are absolutely free for buyers like you. I know this is a shameless plug, but if I don’t tell you about all these resources, how will you know?

How much do I charge to represent you as your Exclusive Sequim Buyers Agent? I’ve saved the best part for last. I charge you absolutely nothing! No written agreement and I charge nothing? “But wait, it’s gets better,” as the T.V. infomercial goes. I bring all my experience as a Realtor® and real estate attorney with a lifetime of negotiating and drafting and proactively protecting my clients to the table for you, and I help you negotiate against a less experienced Realtor® on the other side, and I help you beat up on the seller, and then . . . and this is where I find myself chuckling . . . the seller pays my fee at closing. [Listing agreements split the commission the seller pays between the listing agent the buyers agent.] It just doesn’t seem fair, does it? But it certainly is an advantage for you as my client. I love this part. I’ll bet you do, too.

What do I do for you as your Exclusive Buyers Agent? Here’s an abbreviated bullet list:

I help you navigate the online MLS sites and resources you will need to search effectively to find your ideal home. In other words, I’ll give you guidance to find and use the best online MLS sites, the best syndicated sites, and the local sites where you can find well logs, building permit records, tax records, and recorded documents. I also give you free access to the largest real estate blog on the Olympic Peninsula (and possibly the largest real estate blog by any individual Realtor® in the Northwest). This blog has over 2,200 articles written specifically by me for buyers like you, and I answer all the questions buyers have been asking for over 20 years here. But don’t be overwhelmed if you’re not an Internet geek, because you can delegate as much research to me as you want.
I help you filter listings by answering your questions via email or on the phone, not only about the house, but about the area and specifics about potential problems within that area that could cause you to scratch it off your list.
I help you filter homes you find prior to your arrival by previewing them for you. On occasion I even do FaceTime meetings with my buyers as I walk through a home so they can see it for themselves.
Once you identify your ideal home, I help you draft the offer with all the appropriate addendums and with any specific language we may need, and since I was a real estate attorney for 20 years, we have the advantage on that, too.
I help you to figure out how much to offer and what terms to include in your offer.
I help you negotiate the best possible price and terms, and my experience in negotiating probably surpasses the vast majority, if not all, of my colleagues in the Sequim area.
Once you have a full agreement with the seller, I help you work through the due diligence process to identify any problem areas that need to be addressed, or in the worst case scenario I help you terminate the transaction based on the contract contingencies.
I’m hands on with the inspections and due diligence, which means I attend the home inspection and help you with all other due diligence items.
Lastly, I help you get all the way to closing with the least amount of stress, and that’s probably saying more than you may realize, unless you’ve bought and sold a lot of homes. The entire process can get very complicated very quickly. I don’t know how other agents do it, but I find I have to use every ounce of experience I’ve had to do a good job for my clients. I can’t imagine not having experience as a real estate lawyer and trying to do all this. It’s a challenge even for me.