2/18/2009

Welcome, I'm Dan Sweeney and this is HomeBin University© and today we're talking about the difference between a Buyer's agent and a Seller's Agent.

Buyers agents represent buyers and sellers agents represents sellers. No surprises to see yet. They each try to get the best price and terms for their respective clients. Now, there's a little bit of a conflict of interest between a buyer and a seller.  A buyer wants to buy a property at the lowest price possible.  And a seller wants to sell that home at the highest price possible.  So automatically we are in conflict.  We have a difference of where they're coming from. They both want different things. Now some agents try to represent both parties. But to me and to our company that's really a little backwards because if you're trying to represent the buyer you're trying to get one thing and if you're representing the seller you're trying to get another thing. To me it's kind of like going into a courtroom where the attorney is going between both sides of the courtroom from the defendant back to the prosecution back to the defendant. So to me it's really a one person job. If you're going to be negotiating and looking out for one party you really can't be doing it for both, it's just not possible. So at our company we do not represent both sides of the transaction we only do one. But when we take a listing as a sellers agent, our responsibility is to get the best price in terms for the seller. Now we do that by exposing the property to as many people as possible and getting in as many showings and getting as many offers as we can to get the seller the best price and terms on their house. We do a lot of different things to get that accomplished. We have professional floor plans drawn up, we have a professional photographer to takes photos, we list the property in several different websites; different databases exposing it to different markets, etc. Our list is very lenghthy on the things we do. But one of the things we do, and just about every company does, is put a sign in front of a property. 

Now, let's talk about buyers for a second. If you're a buyer and you're out shopping and you drive past a lawn sign and you call that lawn sign you're going to be calling me and I'm going to be talking to you and I'm talking from the point of trying to get the most money for my seller. Additionally, I'm trying to learn everything I can about the buyer to report to my seller and tell him about negotiating position. If you tell me you just moved in from out of town and have to move tomorrow I'm going to tell the seller that because it's my job to convey everything that I know that can help my seller get the best price and terms possible. Now suppose that you call a buyers agent. They are responsible for getting you the best price and terms on the property and they would call me and they would be judicial with how much information they give out and what pieces of information they give out and they would do research about other properties to see whether my asking price is legitimate or not. Those are the types of things they would do on your behalf. Now every company, just about, will represent both sides; meaning one side or the other. Sometimes I work as a sellers agent, sometimes I work as a buyers agent. I'll never work as both because it's not ethical I can't do my job he way I really want to if I have to be representing both sides. 

Now here's the inside scoop on the buyers agent/sellers agent issue regarding commissions. The sellers agent wants nothing more than for you to contact them directly so they don't have to pay for your buyers agent. You as the buyer don't pay for a buyers agent. They get compensated from the seller.  The seller pays the entire commission; they either all go to the listing agent or they get split 50/50 between buyers agent and sellers agent. So that is why it makes really good sense for you to use a buyers agent if you're a buyer. You get this great resource, it doesn't cost you anything, and they're going to do a lot for you. They're going to comp out the property to make sure that it is within market value. If we're doing this we look at 10 properties on the street to make sure you're in line or below market value for what you're paying for. We can give you a lot of objective information on the process because we've been down this road so many times. We assist you through all the little nuances of negotiations and what to say and what not to say. A lot of the time, people who don't do this for a living they say things that if they knew how they were being interpreted and what they were being used for they wouldn't have said them. Which is why you really need representation one way or the other. And I don't care if it's our company or another company but if you're a buyer make sure that you have your own agent that you are not working with the listing agent. And if you are a seller make sure your listing agent is only working for you. Do not let them represent both sides of the transaction.

So that's the inside story. A big objective of this thing is to separate fact from fiction and to really give you the real deal on what you need to do as a buyer or seller.