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Only an Exclusive Buyer Agent (often called an Exclusive Buyer`s Broker) can GUARANTEE to represent only you in your home purchase, and never both you and the seller.
- Only an Exclusive Buyer Agent can GUARANTEE to negotiate only on your behalf.
- Your Exclusive Buyer Agent provides the true facts as to value, market and neighborhood conditions, and obvious physical defects, not the "facts" the seller hopes you will hear.
- Your Exclusive Buyer Agent will see that you employ a qualified, licensed home inspector who will treat you, the buyer, as his client, and not merely as a customer.
- Listing Agents (the ones with the signs in the front yards) and the companies for which they work all represent the SELLERs, not you, the buyer. Their job is to get the SELLER the highest price on the best terms for the seller, and, in the process, obtain for the seller all your personal and confidential information.
- Your Exclusive Buyer Agent `s job is to get you, the BUYER client, the lowest price on the best terms for you, and to obtain all the relevent seller information without giving up yours.
- Exclusive Buyer Agents will do a better job for transferees than anyone else. They will give you the facts, good and bad. A listing agent may not tell you about many things that could be detrimental to the BUYER because he works for the SELLER.
- Your Exclusive Buyer Agent will help you with your financing alternatives. He will insist that you to be pre-purchase mortgage-approved by a lender before you see homes. Why? Because a fully approved loan makes you an all-cash buyer, and all-cash buyers get most of the best deals.
- Your Exclusive Buyer Agent has a fiduciary set of obligations to put your interests first!
- It just makes sense!
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Comments on Why Use A Buyer Broker? »
Ileana Caporale @ 11:32 am
The realtor says that he works for me but is going to get paid by the seller? is that right? I am not sure if he is going to negociate on my behalf or the seller. Please let me know if this is correct! This is the first time I am going to buy and this process is so complicated…too many thing to be aware of! Thank you. Ileana.
Richard Hamlin Real Estate, Inc. @ 9:23 pm
When I visited the headquarters of the National Association of Realtors® in Chicago in 1996, I met with a vice president of the association to personally get the answers to a number of questions, including the one you ask here. You can actually see me at the NAR headquarters October 19, 1996, at the link below:
http://stamfordhomes.net/yourabsoluteright/chooseaneprorealtor.html
I was told by the National Association's attorney that "compensation does not determine agency", which was explained as follows:
No matter the source of the real estate commission to be paid to the buyer broker — whether it be from the buyer client, the seller customer, or anyone else . . . or even partly from each of several parties — the source of the buyer broker's compensation does not obligate the buyer broker in any way to the seller, or to anyone other than the buyer client.
For the buyer to be a buyer client, and not merely a customer, there must be a Buyer Broker Employment Agreement signed by the buyer and by the buyer broker, and that agreement must have a compensation clause that specifies how the broker will be paid. While the buyer client has the obligation to pay the broker so employed, an experienced Realtor® knows how to get the
seller to directly or indirectly pay the fee from the transaction's
proceeds.
The answers I received at NAR exactly matched the procedures I had established in my buyer brokerage years before, but the confirmation was understandably gratifying.
Another question I had answered in Chicago was, "Can a property listing omit or decline to pay a commission to a buyer broker?" The answer was,
"A listing is an offer of cooperation to other Realtors®, and you cannot have an offer of cooperation without an offer of compensation to the selling broker!"
However, the offer of compensation to the selling broker may be equal to, higher, or lower than the agreed broker compensation specified in the buyer's employment agreement. Therefore, there may be a difference that can result in a debit or credit to the buyer. Our company policy covers all possibilities in such a way that our buyer clients virtually never have to pay a cent more for exercising their absolute right to exclusive Realtor® representation than they would if they had allowed themselves to be a selling broker's customer. I always explain this in detail at our initial no-obligations meeting.
Ileana, your Realtor® only works for you if you have signed such a buyer broker employment agreement with that Realtor®. Without such an agreement, you are just a customer entitled only to the agent's honesty and nothing else, and the Realtor® is either an agent or sub agent of the seller, or is, possible in her case, unemployed and therefore un-entitled to compensation, in
Connecticut.
I hope this is helpful.
Richard Hamlin, C.B.A.®, e-PRO®
Richard Hamlin Real Estate, Inc.
PO Box 3131
Stamford CT 06905-0131
Tel: (203) 355-1200
http://www.RichardHamlin.com