A good buyers agent will save you money time and time again.

Rather than reiterate the benefits of using a buyers agent to assist you in buying a home let me share a war story to enhance the point.

Several weeks ago I received a call from a past client saying she had referred me to her students teacher who was looking to buy a house. The teacher had been looking by herself and was considering making an offer on a home she had seen. She said she told the teacher to stop everything and give me a call. I thanked her and told her I'd let her know if I heard from the teacher. And guess what, the teacher called about 10 minutes later.

The Home Buying Process

Get to know and qualify the buyer.

On the initial call I spent the time getting to know the prospect. Was she qualified to buy? What could she afford? What kind of home did she want to buy, What neighborhood was she interested in? And on and on..... Then the buyer expressed concern about a past experience with a Realtor and said she didn't see any value in using a buyers agent. She felt she could get a better deal just going to the agent who listed the home. We discussed her concerns and I assured her I would save her at least the value of my commission or I would credit her my entire commission at closing. Her takeaway from the call was a 100% satisfaction guarantee and mine was to determine whether the buyer was qualified and motivated to buy. We agreed to move forward.

Get a formal Pre-Approval from a "Qualified" lender

At the end of the call I gave the buyer her first assignment. Get pre-approved. A buyer and their agent must know the buyers purchasing power. A good agent will do some preliminary fact gathering and may run some quick numbers for their own benefit. They should be careful in giving their estimates to the buyer as it may lead to some wrong expectations. I gave the buyer 3 lenders I work with and suggested the strengths of each. After coaching her on what to look for from the lenders, I asked her to contact them the next day, Monday, and let me know who she was going to use. She said she had already spoken with some lenders but would call mine to compare them.

Start and refine the search

The prospect was so excited when she called me back late Monday. All three lenders gladly took her call. The lender she bonded with had approved her for $20k more than she thought she could purchase and still stay within the monthly payment she wanted. The first recognizable benefit of a qualified buyers agent.

So, now we can start the search. I repeated her search criteria she had shared with me earlier to make sure we had connected. I then asked her to check her email that night for some properties to consider. This was assignment #2. Review the properties, dive the neighborhoods and call me to discuss what she thought. On her call we were able to eliminate a lot of wasted time touring homes that just did not fit. A primary criteria she had was to stay within the middle school boundary she taught in. Our search was very limited and most homes were above her purchasing power. So I dug a little deeper and found an entire PUD that agents were mis-classifying the middle school. So, I changed our search and found 8 more homes to consider that were only 1 year old and within her range.

View the Properties

I scheduled a tour for my client (she's now a client because we have entered into a buyers agency agreement) and viewed the top 6 properties on our list. The others were now easy for her to eliminate because she was beginning to understand the process. At the end of the tour she was thrilled and wanted to make a full price offer immediately on her first preference. Then came her third assignment. Decide on the top three homes she could be happy with in the order of preference and meet in my office the following morning to write offers.

Write the offers

Before the morning meeting I had researched each properties MLS history and phoned each agent to gleam what I could from them. I had also spokes with the chosen lender and let him know we were going to write offers. We discussed financing options and how the offers should be written to make sure they would meet the lenders underwriting standards.

When the client arrived I had most of the offer prepared for the home she wanted most. We discussed an offer strategy based on the information I had gathered. In short, we offered full price but asked for a full 3% in closing cost concessions. She said ok, but said she really wanted the home and would be happy with paying full price. I told her it was her decision, but my advice was to use the information we had to her best interest and save $7,500 at closing. She went with my suggestion. I thin prepared her for the possibility of some unexpected event getting in the way and causing the deal not to work. We discussed the 2nd and 3rd home choices and a strategy we would use on them if our offer failed.

Present The Offers

After the client left I faxed the offer to the listing agent with my buyers CMA as wells as the Pre-approval letter from Countrywide. Not just a lame pre-qualification. I followed up the fax with a call to the agent to make sure they received it and to discuss the strength of the buyer and the contents of the offer.

The Waiting Game

The client is anxious and dying to know the results. But, the sellers have relocated out of state so we gave them 48 hours to reply. She wants me to check with the agent but I suggest we not tip our anxiousness and wait out the offer period.

Be Able To Walk Away

Our offer period cam and went and we received no reply and no agent call. So, I contacted the agent to see what was up. He shared  what he shouldn't and told me pushed the seller to accept the offer but thought the husband and wife were divided. He expected a counter for half our closing costs by days end. another day went and nothing came. I discussed the lack of reply and lack of motivation to sell we sensed with the sellers. though she liked the house, the 2nd and 3rd options were very close and with a few miner changes would be just as good as the first. so we prepared to move on and write an offer on the second property. But first, a second look at all 3 properties just to make sure. This time I assisted didn't leave the client to self-discover the home. Instead, I pointed out benefits and weaknesses in each property. Most of the weaknesses were things the client had not considered or noticed.

The Counter Process

We repeated the original offer process on the 2nd choice property with terms and were ready to present the offer when I received a call from the sellers agent on the 1st home and they were faxing the counter. So, we delayed the 2nd offer and reviewed the counter. It reduced the concessions to $3,600 with no other changes. My client was thrilled and wanted to accept their counter. I suggested we review our recent walk-thru the property and some of the problems we found. Though the property was only one year old the sellers had obviously had a dog. There were scratched on the front and rear doors and a faint dog odor in the home. I showed her the slightly opened windows and plug-in air refreshers in some of the outlets. The seller was clearly masking a more prevalent dog odor. We looked even closer at the carpet and found faint dog stains throughout the home but especially in the upstairs bedrooms. finally we countered the counter with the $3,600 in closing concessions and an additional $3,000 in concessions to replace the carpet.

Presenting The Counter

Again, I faxed the offer and followed it up with a call. This time I discussed the carpet with the agent and let them know that all the carpet needed to be replaced. the agent acknowledged the dog had been a full sized lab and the padding was likely stained as well. He took our counter hook, line, and sinker.

Same Day Acceptance

The sellers response was a little quicker this time. Again we gave them 48 hours considering they were from out of state. But, within 6 hours after sending the counter I received a response accepting our counter. We were under contract. I called my client and she was thrilled. She got a little emotional and expressed her thanks. I thanked her for allowing me to help her, and cautioned her that we had not closed yet and still had some hoops to jump through.

 Where was the value?

 So what was the value proposition in this client using an agent rather than going directly to the listing agent?

•  Getting prequalified with a larger purchasing power at the same payment - a preferred interest rate. Value, $50 per month for 30 years.
• $3,600 savings in closing costs
• $3,000 in carpet savings at closing

Sadly most people only see the monetary benefits as the value of using a buyers agent. To me the greatest benefit is the peace of mind of a secure transaction. My primary objective in a transaction is to make sure a client can sleep in their new home without an ounce of buyers remorse. In that lies the greatest value.