Recently, the role of the real estate agent in a homebuyer’s purchase transaction has been thrown into question. Earlier this year, the National Association of Realtors shelled out $418 million to settle a series of lawsuits alleging that the association was inflating commissions.
In particular, commissions for buyer’s agents were dragged into the light. It left some homebuyers questioning whether they need an agent at all. What, exactly, do they bring to the table? Is it truly worth paying a commission fee, or can’t the buyer just manage on their own?
When you’re the one buying a house, do you actually need a licensed professional to guide you through the process? The answer, to me, is yes — unequivocally yes — and I’ll tell you why.
As a buyer’s agent, you bring so many things to the table, and you have to communicate that value to your clients. Buyer’s agents carry their weight by being many things to their clients at once: a finder of good deals, a counselor, a negotiator, and a peacemaker, all in one.
It’s critical to stress to your buyer that they are hiring a professional who has sold many homes in a single year, not just one home every five to seven or 10 years. They are hiring someone who brings experience, knowledge and skills to the table to assist with a transaction related to what is likely to be their single largest asset. Why wouldn’t they hire a professional to represent them?
Help them reach their goals and be the voice of reason
A buyer’s agent can genuinely add value by helping buyers hash out their goals and establish a sensible game plan for finding the right home. Since buying a home is a quagmire that ordinary homebuyers can get lost in, your role as a buyer’s agent is crucial. Afterall, you’ve done this many times with other clients with similar needs.
As a professional buyer’s agent, your role is to first educate the homebuyer on the home-buying process and what comes with homeownership. The buyer’s agents who invest the time upfront with their clients through a consultation make the experience 100 times better for the buyer than those who don’t.
You serve as an unbiased observer in the process and the voice of reason when helping homebuyers who feel overwhelmed to stop them from making emotional or impulsive decisions. You have your clients’ well-being at heart while considering their needs and priorities. You know the usual difficulties and issues to look out for and the home features that hold up in value.
As a buyer’s agent, you have many fingers in the pie. You are a negotiator and a liaison as a professional legally bound to protect homeowners’ best interests and balance out any possible conflict with the seller or their agent. You are a person of many functions — finding homes for your clients to look at, making offers to the listing agent, and negotiating contracts that are advantageous to your customer.
Professional buyers agents save their clients time, money and reduce stress throughout each step of the process. One smart way to show how, exactly, you can do this is to break down the specific services you offer, giving the buyer the ability to choose how they work with you. As a buyers agent, you should have a menu of services that allows the buyer to decide in what capacity they want to work with you.
Showcase your knowledge of exclusive deals and your extensive network
Finding the best property is vital to every homeowner, but it can be like looking for a needle in a haystack. This is where your extensive knowledge as a buyer’s agent becomes critical. You have a deep understanding of the community that your clients are targeting to buy a house. You can offer crucial insights into neighborhoods your clients are exploring, such as everyday things like whether there is a lot of noise pollution, grocery stores nearby, or too much traffic. You also have insider information about existing property values and can inform your clients about the property’s transaction history. You can bring this knowledge to the negotiating table and help clients tremendously by arming them with valuable pricing data when they make an offer.
Finding the perfect home is not easy, and your invaluable network allows your clients to learn about available properties that are not accessible to everyone. This is one of your main selling points. You are giving so much added value because you have built up an extensive list of connections in the real estate industry. Your contacts give you a heads-up about exclusive, sometimes off-the-market and hard-to-find properties your clients can only know about through you. The wide-ranging property choices available through your network will give your clients the gamut of options for homes unavailable to the general public. Professional buyers agents are local market experts and can help the homebuyer win in competitive sellers markets and save money in buyers market.
Spotlight your negotiating skills
A buyer’s agent brings far more value to the table than just scheduling property tours and home inspections. Your role as the go-between for your client is critical when price negotiations come into play.
You bring to the table layers of experience that give you insight into the perspectives of the seller and their agent. Negotiating the best deal for your client is a pivotal part of any real estate transaction. As an agent, you are a trained negotiator, capable of securing favorable terms by advocating for your clients’ needs, protecting their interests, and getting the most from the deal.
You are the buffer and the go-between your client and the seller. You can let your clients know how to proceed with the deal and then serve as the liaison between them and the seller, or in some cases, their broker, especially when talks between your client and the seller become confrontational. Your experience will come in handy as you serve as a voice of reason and offer rational and constructive answers to problems.
You serve as a fountain of valuable references for other services. Buyers need to have a range of professionals on hand to make the seamless transition to being a homeowner — real estate lawyers, home appraisers and inspectors, mortgage brokers, and movers.
Your value doesn’t stop after the sale
But your services shouldn’t stop there. A good buyer’s agent can help homebuyers navigate everything from utility setup to cable connection and a home security system. There is so much that goes into setting up a new home, and a good buyer’s agent should be able to help ease the transition from start to finish. And you can do just that by working with Move Concierge.
By working with a service like Move Concierge, you are making yourself valuable after the purchase and throughout the move. Taking this extra step can help you build a deeper, longer lasting relationship with your client, because you have gone above and beyond what a typical agent might do. You’ve shown that you are an expert who cares by providing them with a seamless moving experience from start to finish, and that’s not something they are likely to forget.
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