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I purchased last year without a buyers agent. Found they were worthless when trying to move quickly. I found they are good if you want to be in X town and are looking nowhere else. Babylon Village is a prime example. A good buyers agent there can get you into the town.
For me, I wanted the best house in a good town for my family and looked all over. I wanted a modern 4 bedroom, 2.5+ bath that was turnkey and under $700k. I went with 2 different buyers agents and found they knew a 3 mile radius of homes. Anything outside that radius and they were searching the MLS/Zillow just like me. I had to discuss with them everytime I wanted to see a place. Just worthless.
Now, if I have 1 regret, it was not having a buyers agent from the accepted offer through closing. The sellers were aholes and their realtor a liar. Changed fixtures and lied about it (we pulled out the pictures from their own listing to call them out). Tried to hide broken windows, holes, issues in the attic. Just petty people. Maybe a buyers agent could of argued over this stuff and relieved stress, but they were of 0 help in finding the right home for us.
Plus, buyer agents know they will be getting little to no commission. They have to split with the selling agent, who already had to split it with the listed agent. So, he may get 25% if lucky. Keep in mind, their commission is based on the selling price so it is in their best interest to keep it high if possible.
Didn’t you do a walk through the morning of the closing? Didn’t you tell them at the closing table that there was damage and removed/replaced appliances? What did they say? You said you had pictures. Why wasn’t the money deducted right then and there?
Didn’t you do a walk through the morning of the closing? Didn’t you tell them at the closing table that there was damage and removed/replaced appliances? What did they say? You said you had pictures. Why wasn’t the money deducted right then and there?
The attorney we hired advised us to close and I was less than happy about it. In retrospect, we shouldn’t have Closed until our concerns were met. The seller and his realtor said the fixtures were only for ‘showings’ and items in the house were ‘going to be removed’ that were still there in our walkthrough. Items were a chandelier was changed. Changed shower heads. Home not swept broom clean. Furniture still in the home strategically placed to hide broken windows/damage.
We brought up a list to our lawyer and I wanted a credit. However, he claimed the seller could keep pushing out the closing date and closing that day was in our interest as well. The issues would be addressed at the closing table and we could sue in small claims court if necessary. All of it was bull****. We got to the table and brought up the issues. Nothing was settled or addressed. Small claims court was bs and the attorney didn’t have a clue.
The attorney does a ton of closings and my wife knew him professionally. I think he did not put forth a level of service that I required and we were taken advantage of by a seller who left town. Our attorney gave us a small discount, but I would rather of paid full price for excellent service. We’ll never hire him, or another attorney, without me interviewing him first, again.
It became a contentious issue in my household before, during, and after closing. I finally made peace that we got a raw deal at closing after it really impacted my relationships with family. As a first time homebuyer who had never dealt with Long Island real estate prior (had experiences with helping parents in PA and DE), the process is so different from that of people I trusted in other states that it was tough to get advice. Again, I should have trusted my feelings at the time and not closed, but ce lest vie.
Lastly, I love my house. I’m very happy with it. I’d buy it again knowing how the deal went down. Just had a bad experience that I’ll learn from for future purchases.
Last edited by scorpionking0731; 04-13-2020 at 07:01 AM..
Reason: Grammar
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"Let this year be over..."
(set 29 days ago)
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Quote:
Originally Posted by trusso11783
Plus, buyer agents know they will be getting little to no commission. They have to split with the selling agent, who already had to split it with the listed agent. So, he may get 25% if lucky. Keep in mind, their commission is based on the selling price so it is in their best interest to keep it high if possible.
If you use a buying agent then it should be a 50/50 split with the selling agent who is the listing agent, do you mean they have to split their commission with their Agency's Broker? All a buying agent means is that they will be representing the buyers interests not the sellers, by disclosing this role the sellers agent know that any negotiations will not be exclusively to the sellers favor. To buy a home where the sellers agent represents both is not a smart choice for the buyer.
The attorney we hired advised us to close and I was less than happy about it. In retrospect, we shouldn’t have Closed until our concerns were met. The seller and his realtor said the fixtures were only for ‘showings’ and items in the house were ‘going to be removed’ that were still there in our walkthrough. Items were a chandelier was changed. Changed shower heads. Home not swept broom clean. Furniture still in the home strategically placed to hide broken windows/damage.
We brought up a list to our lawyer and I wanted a credit. However, he claimed the seller could keep pushing out the closing date and closing that day was in our interest as well. The issues would be addressed at the closing table and we could sue in small claims court if necessary. All of it was bull****. We got to the table and brought up the issues. Nothing was settled or addressed. Small claims court was bs and the attorney didn’t have a clue.
The attorney does a ton of closings and my wife knew him professionally. I think he did not put forth a level of service that I required and we were taken advantage of by a seller who left town. Our attorney gave us a small discount, but I would rather of paid full price for excellent service. We’ll never hire him, or another attorney, without me interviewing him first, again.
It became a contentious issue in my household before, during, and after closing. I finally made peace that we got a raw deal at closing after it really impacted my relationships with family. As a first time homebuyer who had never dealt with Long Island real estate prior (had experiences with helping parents in PA and DE), the process is so different from that of people I trusted in other states that it was tough to get advice. Again, I should have trusted my feelings at the time and not closed, but ce lest vie.
Lastly, I love my house. I’m very happy with it. I’d buy it again knowing how the deal went down. Just had a bad experience that I’ll learn from for future purchases.
I'm sorry you had those issues at closing however I think you handled it very well by leaving it behind you, particularly when family relationships could have been harmed.
You're totally correct about real property transactions differing by State, my experiences confirm.
One thing that might not be hugely different from state to state is contract law as it relates to real property. I've seen changes made to contracts during closings where they put a line through a section, & hand write the agreed upon changes, along with the parties signing off on each.
Of course, that depends on having both the seller & the buyer being reasonable, & that's certainly not a given! My father was a sales representatives for Mack Trucks, & he had lots of stories! (His territory was Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Staten Island, & all of Long Island.) He said some folks were not 'happy' with a deal unless they believed they were screwing someone! To give your attorney the benefit of the doubt, he may have realized the sellers were not reasonable, & were not good people.
The most important thing, imho, is that you & your family love your home, & are happy with it!
A buyer's broker has a fiduciary responsibility to the buyer and normally splits the selling brokers commission.
By not using a buyers broker, the selling broker receives the whole commission and you have no representation. No one to protect your interests, no one to negotiate a better selling price, no one to push back with issues found at inspection or before the closing.
Finding the home you want is the easy part, and yes, the buyers should be looking at the listings and telling the buyers broker which ones you want to see. Most of the work occurs after you find the home you want - getting the seller to choose you when there are multiple offers, being there when the home inspector is there, negotiating the sale price based upon the inspection, coordinating with the attorney to get the contract signed quickly before another buyer offers more money than you offered before the contract is signed.
Do you need a buyers broker - no, but since it may not cost you anything, and they're there to protect your interests, then why not?
Yes, there are buyers brokers who do not do a good job, but the same can be said for sellers brokers too.
When I bought my house, I found it very easy dealing and negotiating with seller brokers. I have a feeling they took my offers to the sellers first because they did not need to split a commission. So there are advantages to having no buyer broker.
The attorney we hired advised us to close and I was less than happy about it. In retrospect, we shouldn’t have Closed until our concerns were met. The seller and his realtor said the fixtures were only for ‘showings’ and items in the house were ‘going to be removed’ that were still there in our walkthrough. Items were a chandelier was changed. Changed shower heads. Home not swept broom clean. Furniture still in the home strategically placed to hide broken windows/damage.
We brought up a list to our lawyer and I wanted a credit. However, he claimed the seller could keep pushing out the closing date and closing that day was in our interest as well. The issues would be addressed at the closing table and we could sue in small claims court if necessary. All of it was bull****. We got to the table and brought up the issues. Nothing was settled or addressed. Small claims court was bs and the attorney didn’t have a clue.
The attorney does a ton of closings and my wife knew him professionally. I think he did not put forth a level of service that I required and we were taken advantage of by a seller who left town. Our attorney gave us a small discount, but I would rather of paid full price for excellent service. We’ll never hire him, or another attorney, without me interviewing him first, again.
It became a contentious issue in my household before, during, and after closing. I finally made peace that we got a raw deal at closing after it really impacted my relationships with family. As a first time homebuyer who had never dealt with Long Island real estate prior (had experiences with helping parents in PA and DE), the process is so different from that of people I trusted in other states that it was tough to get advice. Again, I should have trusted my feelings at the time and not closed, but ce lest vie.
Lastly, I love my house. I’m very happy with it. I’d buy it again knowing how the deal went down. Just had a bad experience that I’ll learn from for future purchases.
Just curious about the attorney, was he/she strictly a real estate attorney or a generalist?
Just curious about the attorney, was he/she strictly a real estate attorney or a generalist?
Strictly real estate attorney and does many closings. My feeling is the sellers/their agent were dicks and our attorney just didn't want to deal with them and their realtor's nonsense. I don't think he was ignorant or inept dealing with the legal topics, but definitely did not go to battle over petty **** the seller kept doing.
For the big thing, finding the house and negotiating the price, I felt a buyer's agent added little to no value during that process. However, there may be value in having one from accepted offer stage on as that was the period where all the intricacies about NY real estate come into play. Maybe I just had a bad attorney, but I do feel that real estate agents deal with craziness fairly well as its much more of a client facing job, while the attorneys are used to battling it out with colleagues over legal topics.
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