Home Buyers Often Need To Know What They Don’t Know Before They Can Know What To Buy.

Working as a buyer’s agent, my extensive experience in real estate enables me to provide a high level of guidance with property search, vetting, and negotiation. I enjoy working with both first-time buyers and the experienced, providing a high level of advice and attention to detail.

In my experience, a “hyper-local” agent should not be a good fit for many buyers in their search. The hyper-local agent is a hot concept right now, but it has both positives and negatives. Some are hyper-local to be more competitive with other agents locally; some don’t have the knowledge to go beyond their local neighborhood; some have different reasons or a combination of reasons for this approach.

Hobbit House -Photo by Bence Kondor from Pexels
Photo by Bence Kondor from Pexels

I believe the main driver of the “hyper-local agent” has to do with marketing and economics, which benefit the agent.

However, I find it works against many buyers to be served by a hyper-local agent. In my experience, most buyers need to consider several locations while keeping their options open before they are ready to buy and have the market knowledge to know which areas are most attractive to them.

Working as a buyers agent, I can rely on the tools learned through my eleven years of full-time valuation experience to go into diverse areas.

When vetting property together with my buyers, I can point out things that may be important to them or need a professional to look into further should we go under contract. While I’m not acting as an inspector, my contribution is my ability to inform my buyers to aid them in decision making and developing a strategy and path to move forward – this can save them from making an offer on the wrong property and waste time. 

For Out-of-State and Relocating buyers, I provide a virtual walk-through video!

The virtual walk-through video for my buyer clients is not a kind of video I would produce to “Sell” property, such as for marketing purposes. I don’t sell to buyers when they are my clients; I inform as a consultant. Clarification – If I have a listing, my duty is to the seller and not to the Buyer.  If my buyer client is trying to buy one of my properties listed and they are my client, I will point out the conflict of interest and suggest they hire another agent for my listing.   The purpose of the video is to provide enough information for a buyer to vet property and to put forth an offer if the property is acceptable and fits their goals.

How I Help Buyers 1The walk-through video encompasses the exterior of the property and the interior. If access is a factor, I will include the problem access points as I drive to the property. I include opening up appliances, drawers, all rooms and closets, and looking at each room from various angles.  I point out all things a buyer of a house should find meaningful, whether that’s the drainage around the house, the slope of the land, the mechanical systems, evidence of deferred maintenance, failing windows, etc. This video is not a home inspection but rather a visual inspection.

No property is perfect (not even new property), and it’s essential to see the property in an unfiltered way.  I make the video continuous, so the Buyer can see how each room or area connects to the other rooms and spaces.  I upload this video to YouTube and provide a link to it in an email for my buyer clients to review so we can discuss it when convenient. 

Whenever a buyer relies on information obtained from my walk-through video to make an offer on a property, I strongly recommend they visit the property to see it and the areas outside the property in person during the inspection period in the contract offer to be sure. The inspection period allows the Buyer to not only inspect the property by professionals but to personally inspect the property and surrounding neighborhood to be sure the house is acceptable. If it isn’t, we can object by the end of the inspection period to retain the earnest money and cancel the offer contract. I have found my video presentation of the property doesn’t leave them with surprises when they visit, and it has worked well for them. 

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