The Speed of Trust,
Getting to Yes,
All Real Estate is Local,
Negotiation,
Clear Blogging,
You’ve Got to Find a Great Real Estate Agent!
This is inspired by a colleague and friend of ours, Rich Jacobson , who owns the Kitsap County Real Estate Blog in Washington state. His work for the source of this series is superb, and with his graces we are retooling it for first time home buyers in our South Lake Tahoe real estate market.
This then is the second in a series of articles focused on helping 1st Time Home Buyers successfully buy a house in South Lake Tahoe. Each time, we’ll focus on key events, or steps if you will, in the South Lake Tahoe home buying process.
In the first of this series, we talked about Mortgage Lenders and Loan Pre-Approval.
Step Two: Find a Top Notch Real Estate Agent (here’s 10 traits to look for)
One of the things we like best about practicing real estate is we often get to provide meaningful help to people. I can’t think of anything more true than the joy we’ve had helping first time home buyers.
First allow us to emphasize just how important it is to have a professional real estate agent to represent you. This is of particular importance, and even more so for a first time home buyer. You owe it to yourself to have a dedicated advocate to represent your best interests exclusively. Here’s a list of things to look for in finding that professional:
Top Ten Traits of a Good Real Estate Agent: (part one, the first five!)
Advocate: The Professional agent takes representation seriously (in the trade it’s called "agency", and it derives from English common law). Representing a first time buyer is not about us, it is about You.
As your agent, ours is a fiduciary relationship to represent your best interests. Period! But not so with listing agents; theirs is a duty to represent the Seller. A Buyer’s Agent owes statutory duties and obligations to you and you alone. Ask the agent you are considering to explain agency law. A great agent is both passionate and literate when answering this question.
Knowledgeable: A great agent is knowledgeable (you know what this looks like, it usually appears as "very smart", and it’s casual rather than pedantic). The experienced agent understands local, state, and Federal real estate law. Particular to South Lake Tahoe, the knowledgeable agent also knows about the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and it’s sometimes rather arcane issues about environmental protection and local growth restrictions.
The knowledgeable agent not only knows the various contracts and forms that the first time buyer will encounter, they will be comfortable and eager to explain them to you. The agent you are looking for knows the local market intimately, but if they don’t know something (nobody knows everything), and this is key for you to observe, the knowledgeable agent easily admits what they do not know, but that they do know where to get the answer for you quickly (It is this humility that is perhaps more telltale about professionalism than an overbearing know-it-all).
Ethical: Licensed real estate professionals are held to exceptionally high standards, The NAR Code of Ethics. Be sure your agent is a member of The National Association of Realtors, for if they are not, they are not held to the same standards as those that are. Good agents don’t just talk about being ethical, it’s who and what they are, and its palpable.
Accessible: The agent you are looking for is easy to find and is readily available… in more ways than one. They are available via email, both land and cell phones, and the agent we are, and we’d like to have if we were first time home buyers, will often give you their home office phone number as well. More often than not these days, the top of the line agent is also available through Facebook and Twitter.
A great barometer of the accessible agent is to ask yourself these questions,"does my agent return my calls promptly?" Does my agent return my emails promptly?" "Does my agent make me feel like I am their only client, and that their head is in my game?"
Communicator: The agent you are looking for is a consistent source of relevant information. This is especially critical for 1st Time Home Buyers. There is no such thing as too much information. A great indication of your agents communication skills is if they ask you this question as part of the initial interview, "would you prefer that I communicate with you via email or phone, what time of day is best for you, and how often would you like to hear from me?"
This completes the first five of the top ten traits to look for in a real estate provessional. Look for the remaining 5 Traits of a Great Real Estate Agent in our next post, coming soon! We hope you find this series helpful.
The first post in this series, Mortgage Lenders and Loan Pre-Approval here.
The next post in this series, Get a Great Real Estate Agent (Pt 2) here.