? for those who have bought/sold a home
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? for those who have bought/sold a home
| Tue, 10-03-2006 - 2:04pm |
Question for you.
When dh & I bought our home, we didnt use a realtor, as it just sort of happened. Easy enough, there weren't problems.
Anyways, we are thinking of selling our home and buying a new one. How do we go about doing this? Obviously we would get a realtor this time, because we dont know anything about selling a home. Do we get 1 realtor to sell our place AND find a new one for us, or do we use seperate realtors? Do we sell our home first, then scramble to find a new place, or do we find one first, buy it, then sell our place?
How does this all work? How do you find a good realtor? aaakkkkk, so many questions, but if anyone can give advise or there personal expierences, that would be greatly appriciated!

We sold and bought 3 years ago this October. We used 2 different realtors, one for looking and one for selling. We made a HUGE mistake, though, and started looking before we put our home on the market and then decided *not* to use the realtor who was helping us look as our seller. Needless to say, she was miffed and not much help after this. We had a terrible time finding a new selling realtor that was any help and we finally decided to do it ourselves. We went to the neighborhoods we wanted to live in, found all the homes we wanted to see, called up the realtors and said "we want to see your house on whatever day at whatever time and we don't have a buying realtor" and they were very accomodating because if we bought they got twice the commission. Eventually in this process we actually met a realtor we really liked and he helped us finally find the perfect home.
As far as selling realtors, I would say interview different realtors, listen to what they have to say about what they want to do for you, talk about price, and then make a decision. And beware of realtors who tell you they can get more for your home than anyone else.
Beware of realtors who go on and on about open houses, those aren't a bad idea, but they rarely sell the house. They're used more for the realtor to drum up new clients for himself.
Another serious tip I can give you is you have the right to set the length of your realtor contract and don't go longer than 3 months. Our sellers were CRAP and we were stuck with them for 6 months!! Don't get caught up in that.
We actually bought this house before we sold the other and had 2 mortgages for about 9 months. The city we previously lived in was in steep decline and we had to escape anyway necissary. Factories were shutting down, unemployment was through the roof, the schools were quickly going down the toilet. We managed to get the downpayment we made on the house back, and that was about it, but we were lucky compared to some.
If I were you, I'd interview for seller first and get it on the market before you start looking. Some companies have seperate buyers reps and sellers, which is a great set up. After it's on the market, pick your buyers rep and look at homes. Line up your faves and then when you get an offer on yours you're ready.
Hope this was helpful
Erin
I think that's up to you. There's pros and cons either way. I think the best set up, if you can find it, is an agency that separates the selling and the buying. In the end we had seperate realtors for selling and buying because our current neighborhood and former neighborhood were 45 minutes apart and we wanted a realtor that knew this area better and didn't have to drive an hour to show us houses. I think it can work if you use the same for both, but if you don't like him in the buying aspect, you're stuck with him for the length of the selling contract, so just know you want to work with him. Does that make sense?? I've also known people who've gotten comission breaks because they used the same realtor for both. They charged less comission on the selling of the house because they knew they were going to get half the comission of buying another, so in that way it can be a pro.
Erin
More than likely you can use one realtor for both. I've never sold/bought in the same city, so we used two realtors (one where we were selling and one where we were buying).
Both times we put a clause in the offer for the new house, that our old house had to sell first.
I didn't read the other replies, but we just bought last year. We were in a townhome for 6 years and moved to a single family home. I am not sure if things are done differently in Canada than in the US (I am in Canada)
We used one realtor for both selling our home and buying the new one. I would only use 1. Too much hassle to be involved with more than that. Running to 2 different offices to sign papers, etc. Anyway, we bought the new house first. I would recommend that. If you sell first, and don't find a new house, you are stuck moving to a temporary location, or buying a house you don't like. If you buy the new house first, give yourself a few months on the close date (we bought the new house in September and picked a close date of November - to allow us 2 months to sell the old house) to sell your home and worse case you may have to have 2 mortgages for a couple months. If you have a good home with a decent price you will sell before you have to move anyway. We priced our house in the medium-high range for our area and it sold in 2 days. Lucky yes, but the price was right!
Good luck! It is stressful, but sooo worth it when you find a house you love!
Iam not sure if Canada housing market is any different from the US, but lately at least her in Florida it has gone kaput. Houses that used to sell in 1-2 days are now on th emarket for 3-6 months. If you can afford 2 mortgages, then I would say sure look now. Otherwise you migth run the risk of falling in love with something and the seller wants to close asap and you cant b/c you havent sold your house. You can put in contigenicies in your contract which states that you have to sell your home before you can close on theirs.
As for realtors, I used two mainly b/c i got pissed at my selling agent. However I would now use our buyer agent both to seel and look for another home if we ever move b/c she went beyond the call of duty for us! It all depends on your realtor and your relationship.
HTH,
jen
Jennifer