Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
if it were me, as a realtor, i would have checked the houses and conditions prior to emailing you some samples
C'mon is that really realistic? I was looking at some homes in Lakewood, OH a few years back and the agent showed me twenty homes in a little over eight hours. Was she going to really visit and inspect each property prior to my arrival? I was surprised that she was able to even get ahold of all of the listing agents by phone.
Don't get me wrong. There are some really LAZY agents out there which is a real shame when the economy is so bad.
1. these are reo's vacant already... 2 and if you gave me the details that you wanted in a home, i would see whats available, and check them out.. if its 5 or 6 to show, of course i would check them first.. Why would i even bother showing a trashed house? This ain't ohio!
I suggest moving here and renting first before buying a house. If you're going to be living in the house then why make a decision when you haven't even been inside the house or the neighborhood? Seems like common sense to me. You have to qualify for a loan unless you're paying all cash. Is it possible to qualify for a loan when you don't have a U.S. address?
These are probably the same things the realtors are wondering and if they don't know the answer then they're not going to take you seriously. They don't want to waste their time nor yours.
Wow, took me a while to realize there were so many responses to this thread. For some reason my email wasn't getting updates that there were any responses...I figured nobody liked me.
First, thanks for all the responses! To clarify one thing, we are American, so we wont have any issues with placing a bid, EMD, ect. We just happen to live in England right now. We do expect to do a lot of work ourselves finding and whittling down the list of viable homes for us. I know that we are doing the "not recommended thing" with trying to bid on a house from afar, but are mitigating those issues with getting agent pictures, having a local friend walk through for us, and asking lots of questions.
Here's a more pointed redirection of my original post:
I envision this process going quite smoothly, but don't know if we're asking too much of our agent. We daily look at houses both on our agent's forwarding list and form Zip (love the site by the way) and the wife and I sift through these houses to find what we like. Here's where things get sticky for us because our agent doesn't seem to like and/or be able to complete the rest of my "vision":
1. Ask agent to get current pictures for us - is 2-3 days unreasonable?
2. Ask agent to give us his opinion and recommended bid price with the pictures
3. Ask agent to show the house to friend
4. Ask agent to email us bid so we can submit
We've made it through steps 1-3 so far, but not without much pain and general frustration with "our guy." When we ask him to get pictures, he never tells us when he'll get them, and the first time he got them he only gave us 4 pictures of a house! We had to tell him to go back and get more because he disregarded our request to get pictures of each room.
We've asked him for his opinion overall on a house, and his bidding recommendation before, but it seems like we need to continually PULL information from him. I understand and respect not wanting to be responsible for being the agent and the person giving advice to buyers from afar. All I'm asking for is his honest opinion of the neighborhood and the house. I'm not asking him to sign a contract saying that if we're not 100% happy he has to buy the house back!
#3 has gone fine, as long as we push about things.
The bidding has been less than awesome as well. We did find a house that we liked, had a friend look at it, and still wanted to bid. Our agent mentioned it'd need some work and we should bid a bit less than asking. So we were happy with that and thought we were lined up to bid, but at the last moment our agent told us that it would go for asking, quickly dismissed it as an option, and told us that there's much better options out there. Apparently he was told from the selling agent that "best and final" was requested, and that meant it was going for list...a bit more than what we were willing to bid. From where we sit, we felt like a little more discussion should go on about it and, bottom line...if we don't bid on ANY houses - we'll never have a chance of getting one. I understand that it takes some work to make up a bid, but dang it, I'm paying you to put it in (eventually)!
Other things annoy me - one line email responses on every email I send, not answering direct questions, never calling me (I know, England is far, but not THAT hard to call!), disregarding my call (no kidding...this is great...we called him tonight to discuss our frustrations and before I could get rolling he says, "I've got a long distance line coming in here, can you call me back in an hour and a half?" Are you kidding me? Am I not long distance?!), and an overall general feeling that if I don't call or email he'll never email and ask how things are going.
Ugh...not to write a book and all, but you can sense my frustration. Ultimately I just want to feel like I'm not crazy here expecting a bit more from my agent.
I have been pleased with my realtor. As out-of-towners, we came to Las Vegas exploring condo foreclosures and she spent the weekend showing us around. She learned our interests. She subsequently became our eyes and ears. Whenever, something new popped up, she contacted us promptly. Fortunately, one Metropolis, or Meridian, or Newport Loft, or other condo were pretty much the same as any other within the same complex. She did take pictures, usually about twenty or so, and sent them to us. She sent them to her other clients as well. All our bids were from "afar" so having trust in your realtor is vital. If you are not satisfied with your realtor, then I would seek another. I am sure there are plenty who are available. Good Luck!
Quote:
Originally Posted by airwee
Wow, took me a while to realize there were so many responses to this thread. For some reason my email wasn't getting updates that there were any responses...I figured nobody liked me.
First, thanks for all the responses! To clarify one thing, we are American, so we wont have any issues with placing a bid, EMD, ect. We just happen to live in England right now. We do expect to do a lot of work ourselves finding and whittling down the list of viable homes for us. I know that we are doing the "not recommended thing" with trying to bid on a house from afar, but are mitigating those issues with getting agent pictures, having a local friend walk through for us, and asking lots of questions.
Here's a more pointed redirection of my original post:
I envision this process going quite smoothly, but don't know if we're asking too much of our agent. We daily look at houses both on our agent's forwarding list and form Zip (love the site by the way) and the wife and I sift through these houses to find what we like. Here's where things get sticky for us because our agent doesn't seem to like and/or be able to complete the rest of my "vision":
1. Ask agent to get current pictures for us - is 2-3 days unreasonable?
2. Ask agent to give us his opinion and recommended bid price with the pictures
3. Ask agent to show the house to friend
4. Ask agent to email us bid so we can submit
We've made it through steps 1-3 so far, but not without much pain and general frustration with "our guy." When we ask him to get pictures, he never tells us when he'll get them, and the first time he got them he only gave us 4 pictures of a house! We had to tell him to go back and get more because he disregarded our request to get pictures of each room.
We've asked him for his opinion overall on a house, and his bidding recommendation before, but it seems like we need to continually PULL information from him. I understand and respect not wanting to be responsible for being the agent and the person giving advice to buyers from afar. All I'm asking for is his honest opinion of the neighborhood and the house. I'm not asking him to sign a contract saying that if we're not 100% happy he has to buy the house back!
#3 has gone fine, as long as we push about things.
The bidding has been less than awesome as well. We did find a house that we liked, had a friend look at it, and still wanted to bid. Our agent mentioned it'd need some work and we should bid a bit less than asking. So we were happy with that and thought we were lined up to bid, but at the last moment our agent told us that it would go for asking, quickly dismissed it as an option, and told us that there's much better options out there. Apparently he was told from the selling agent that "best and final" was requested, and that meant it was going for list...a bit more than what we were willing to bid. From where we sit, we felt like a little more discussion should go on about it and, bottom line...if we don't bid on ANY houses - we'll never have a chance of getting one. I understand that it takes some work to make up a bid, but dang it, I'm paying you to put it in (eventually)!
Other things annoy me - one line email responses on every email I send, not answering direct questions, never calling me (I know, England is far, but not THAT hard to call!), disregarding my call (no kidding...this is great...we called him tonight to discuss our frustrations and before I could get rolling he says, "I've got a long distance line coming in here, can you call me back in an hour and a half?" Are you kidding me? Am I not long distance?!), and an overall general feeling that if I don't call or email he'll never email and ask how things are going.
Ugh...not to write a book and all, but you can sense my frustration. Ultimately I just want to feel like I'm not crazy here expecting a bit more from my agent.
Well, we decided to talk it over with our agent, express our concerns, and hope for the best in the coming weeks. I think it has been a bit of learning for us both - for us, trying to find the most efficient way of finding a house from afar, and for him, trying to communicate better in a medium that he's not that great with.
Can't fault him for not wanting to be liable for being the sole provider of most of our information, but given the situation we're in that's what we need. I'd love to be able to see the house ourselves, but pictures and opinions from he and our friends will have to do.
It's perfectly possible to get two--or three, or four--bad agents in a row.
I've never been a real estate agent, but I've known quite a few. And I've also had the mixed luck of living in places where the market went into a boom followed by a bust (Hawaii in the 1980s, California in the early 1990s...pretty much everywhere today!)
When the market is hot, every second person seems to become an agent. (In Hawaii in the 1980s, there were university professors quitting their jobs to sell real estate.) The result is a lot of mediocre agents joining the force--and if you pick agents randomly or based on advertising, chances are very good in today's market that you will get someone who isn't all that good at their job.
The real test comes when the market goes bust. It takes some time, but a bust tends to clear out most of the poor agents.
In a bust, there tend to be two kinds of good agents--experienced pros, and hard-working newer agents. A buyer's market tends to shake out everybody else.
Word of mouth is always the best way to find professionals in any field (as long as you correct for the fact that some people will refer you to their friends.) Were I you, I'd take some of the people on this forum up on their offers to provide names of agents who do a good job. Or DM some of the agents on this forum--all of them seem to have their heads screwed on properly.
This is just a question of how the RE Agent does his job. It is not hard to keep up with client email and it makes no difference whether it comes from San Diego or London.
Recently closed a couple of Europeans. Went smoothly.
It is difficult if not impossible for anyone other than a Canadian to finance but cash works quite well.
The one complexity is earnest money. Practically it can be solved by wiring the earnest money...but almost all the time you need an American check to get the offer considered. So it is highly useful to have an American checking account. That can generally be worked through one of the banks with foreign offices or by opening an account while you are here.
Note that if functioning as an investor you need either a SS number of a TID. In Nevada it may in fact be better to use an LLC. Practically if not theoretically you need to file a US tax return to own US rental property.
Note that ZIP Realty is simply another IDX feed. It is simply a subset of the MLS feed. What it may be is that people like is a good interface. The only thing wrong with IDX feeds is they don't have enough information for many kinds of searches. Search for VA financing for instance.
May I ask what price range are these properties you are interested in? If you can mention that, I might have another reason you are having these frustrations.
May I ask what price range are these properties you are interested in? If you can mention that, I might have another reason you are having these frustrations.
We listed one in 5 days 7 offers 4 cash last week (list Price over $220)
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Wow
