In a strong seller’s market, a prospective buyer’s biggest ally is their real estate agent. When there is a low inventory of homes available, there are more buyers than homes resulting in multiple offers, offers over asking price, and a longer search. This is when the quality of your agent really counts!
What can you count on your buyer’s agent to do? Make the whole process smoother by facilitating or handling most things.
- Recommending a mortgage lender, and helping you get pre-approval for a loan, and helping you with the loan application.
- Narrowing down the home search, and even knowing about homes not yet listed. Setting up showings of prospective houses.
- Negotiating your offer. They have the expertise to know about pricing in the area, which concessions to push for and which ones to let go, and strategies for putting together a winning offer.
- Recommending and attending a home inspection with the buyer to offer expert perspective. They’ll recognize old roofs, old furnaces and other possible high dollar costs.
- Most of the paperwork: disclosures, offer letters, deed, title, bill of sale, and more!
And don’t worry – their expertise likely won’t cost you anything. Typically, both the buyer’s and the seller’s agent commissions for a home sale comes out of the seller’s profit. Everything is must easier in this complicated process when you have an advocate guiding you through it.