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Start to Finish: Work With One Agent
They promise personal service. Most just pass you off.
One of the biggest complaints buyers can have when working with an agent is that the agent "checks out" as soon as you go under contract. This can result in missed material facts, undue stress as a result of fragmented communication, or missed opportunities. In the end, the agent collects a commission check and you collect a series of avoidable problems. I've experienced this as a buyer before I became an agent myself, so I know how this feels. Because of this, when you work with me, I guarantee that I will be with you every step of the way, and even after closing. Here is some practical information on what to look out for when trying to choose the best realtor.
Warning Signs When Picking an Agent
If you're interviewing an agent with a massive team, the chances are you're signing up to be a cog in a wheel. Agents like that can be stellar individual performers, but as a result of scaling they had to create a team to outsource each step of the transaction. While this is a smart business move and allows them to grow, this means one of the - if not the - biggest purchase of your life will become a lot less personal. Here's how this typically looks, and what you can look out for.
The Most Common Situation
You may start by talking to a sales team or owner until you're ready to sign them as your agent, and then once that is done you get passed off to a showing/sub agent who is responsible for opening doors so you can tour homes. Once you find a home you like and win an offer, you then get passed to a transaction coordinator who pushes paperwork and ensures milestones are hit. When you finally close on the house, they send an assistant to hand off the keys. Eventually a virtual assistant will text you asking for a review, and meanwhile another assistant is adding you to an automated messaging system to check-in periodically in hopes for a future referral.
While that original agent technically represents you on paper from start to finish, in effect you went through all of this effort and research to work with a star agent only to be pawned off to an assistant. This can leave you feeling like your agent cared most about getting you to sign them, but then once that was done they were off to the next prospective client.
To Be Fair…
Now to be fair, when you generate more business than you can handle then you're left with either leaving offers on the table or to scale up with systems that allow you to manage a higher capacity. This means that working with a large team isn't inherently bad, it just means you have a decision to make as a buyer on how you want to be represented.
Working with a big team means they can cover more breadth at the expense of personalization, and working with a personal agent can cover more depth at the risk of capacity if the agent tries to take on more business than they can handle. As such, this is a very important topic to discuss when interviewing potential agents to represent you.
Conclusion
In conclusion, you as the buyer need to be aware how real estate teams work before you sign one to represent you - there is a decision to be made, even if it's not explicitly stated during interviews. If you work with a big team, you're likely going to feel a much less personalized, machine-like approach to the home buying process. If done well, this can be efficient, however often times this means the buyer is left feeling like they've been pushed through a sales funnel.
Alternatively, if you work with someone like me then I will be there with you every step of the way and beyond. When signing me as your agent, you know what you're going to get and it will consistently deliver. If we discover problems during home inspections, I'm personally there spearheading the resolution. To balance the potential risks of one agent covering every step, I cap the number of buyers I represent each month to 4 to avoid being spread too thin.
As such, if you're even potentially interested in buying a home in the next year or so, I recommend we hop on a call to talk through your specific needs and secure a spot before they fill.
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