poboxjosh said:
I never recommend using the seller's agent. They are exactly that, an agent for the seller. If they are any good at all their job is to make the seller as much money as possible. I would take bets that they wouldn't reduce the commission at all and keep the extra profit for the brokerage house and themself. Remember that the agent has to pay a percentage of the commission to the broker through whose firm they are working. Even if they do reduce the commission by 1-2 percent that is not enough of a savings to make up what your own agent can save you from in short term fees and long term headaches. I used a fixed price agent for selling the previous house and made the mistake of using them for the purchase of the new house. They pretty much did not do anything as my wife found all the properties we looked at except for 5 out of the 31 we saw. They were pretty much just along for the ride.
Just an example, the house we currently live in is in an area that is known to have problems with galvanized plumbing that rusts out within approx. 12-15 years do to substandard materials being used that passed inspection. Our house is 17 years old and when we had the home inspection done the instector noted only minor things wrong. Knowing that the house had not had a copper re-pipe done I asked for a plumbing inspection to check out the piping. The seller refused, but agreed to a roofing inspection as the home inspection had noted some minor issues with the shingles. My agent told me not to worry as long as the plumbing wasn't leaking the home warrenty would cover any problems. Fortunately I'm not that dumb, I new what was up when the owner's didn't want an inspection. I bet that the pipes would need to be replaced soon, but as we were getting the place for $20,000 under market value and were planning to keep it awhile I wasn't too worried about it. I was right too, about a year and a half latter we paid out $5000 to have the place re-piped as there were tons of small pin hole leaks that were starting to burst. In the mean time I had saved up the money for the re-pipe and was ready for it, but if I had listened to my agent I would have been screwed as I was 6 months out of the home warrenty and it was all out of pocket expenses.
That little story shows you what a seller's agent can do to you or in my case what a bad buyer's agent can do to you.
One thing you might also try to do if you can and you are not in a red hot market that is moving up 5-10% every month or two is to wait until winter to buy. The housing market always slows down or drops slightly in the winter months as nobody wants to move during the holidays or change the kid's schools in the middle of the semester. People who are trying to sell in the winter either need to move or have had the place on the market so long that they are will to bargin and you can find some grreat deals.
Ok, I'm going to stop writing this novel now before I kill someone with boredom.(braindead
