Buyer Representation - An Agent's Guide - Jupiter, FL

Buyer’s Agents, you have a hard job. You have to know the area you serve, the schools, the hospitals, the neighborhoods, the rules for those neighborhoods, the general construction types, general home deficiencies, the details of each home you show including who the neighbors are. You have to determine your Buyer’s needs, match them to available inventory, find off-market opportunities, schedule the showings with Listing Agents that don’t respond, get the access codes, gate codes and keep the tour on track once it starts with trains, bridges and bathroom breaks. You show the house, keep the kids from disassembling the Seller’s kids lego collection, keep the cat in the house, point of the features, the benefits, turn off the lights and make sure the doors are locked before heading to the next house you have never been in before only to do the same. Buyer’s agents have to be able to quickly determine value, competition, opportunities and marry that with in-depth contract knowledge to draft an offer that is protective of your client, but not too protective that your offer is no longer competitive. You need to grasp the lending side of the transaction so expectations are managed property, the insurance side of things, the title side of things and estimate the cost of all the Buyer’s planned or future renovations and advise if they will provide an ROI or if it is just for them. You need to enroll the Listing Agent and their personality in the success of the sale and be the director for all other parties involved to keep the transaction on track for a successful close. You need to know the best, worst and most probable scenario for each step of the transaction and you need to use your will to push the outcomes into “Best Case” more often than not. There are thousands of things not listed that a Buyer’s Agent must be prepared to handle, and a thousand things that have never happened before in the history of real estate that you need to use the sum or your experience to solve. I say all this for a specific purpose today…it is because I believe many, many real estate agents don’t understand the value they bring, or are expected to bring to the table so they feel the need, based on limited experience or personal insecurities to brandish confidence or assertiveness where it doesn’t belong, or hinders vs. helps your client in securing a home. So where does this show up?

• Fabricating Facts & Possibilities: The larger the area you serve, the harder it is to know every neighborhood, every rule, every best practice and every local nuance. On a tour of 5 homes, you likely know a little bit about each, while a listing agent SHOULD know everything about the specific home they listed, so use them as a tool whether on site at a showing accompanied by a listing agent, or give them a quick call with your FAQ’s for each listing or your clients specific FAQ’s based on your experience with them. If you don’t know the construction of the house, don’t make it up, an instant answer is not required. This goes for EVERYTHING… provide facts, not guesses. It is OK to say, “I don’t know, but I wrote your question down and I’ll have an answer by the end of our tour.” If you find yourself saying that to every question… do a better job of anticipating your clients questions and securing the facts ahead of time. 

• “I could never let my client…….”: This is the sound of an agent making a decision for the client without consulting them, or amplifying the risk in the consultation (usually based on an agents personal experience) guiding the client towards an impasse in the transaction. Many a great home were missed by Buyer’s because of a Buyer’s Agent opinion regarding road noise, construction type, hurricane protection, mold and that opinion may not have been shared by the client. This is digging in at the wrong time.

I accompany every single showing on my listings and the amount of alternative facts and misinformation confidently served by Buyer’s Agents is shocking. If the listing agent accompanies showings on their listings, USE THEM AS A RESOURCE as I do when I act as a Buyer’s Agent. I get that you want to be the expert, but there is rarely a scenario where a Buyer’s Agent knows more about the home than the Listing Agent. Here are some scripts I use as a Buyer’s Agent to prepare my clients for a listing agent accompanied showing. 

“Great news, the listing agent is going to be at the next home we are seeing today. Let’s use them as a resource for any questions I may not have an answer for and remember, they were hired by the Seller, so keep your poker face on.”

“Great news, the listing agent is going to be at the next home we are seeing today. My job is to help you find the right home, their job is sell a specific home, that said they may have more detailed information about this property, so let’s use them as a resource while we have them in front of us, but remember the Seller hired them, so keep your poker face on.”  

Are they going to sound smarter than you about that house, probably, but remember it isn’t your job to know the most about a single house, it is to help your client find the RIGHT house out of many. It also helps to think of the listing agent as a team member and resource, not us vs. them. 

Generally speaking I think most mistakes made by Buyer’s agents aren’t “Errors & Omissions” claims about to happen, they are subtle mistakes nurtured by insecurities or their feelings of not providing value equivalent to the commissions they earn. To help with the latter, I encourage you to open your eyes and observe other agents on the job…. Stop trying to justify the commissions  for the job out of thin air, and start with “This is the commission for the job, out of 1,000 agents what would it take to do this job better than 995 of those agents.” It is a subtle distinction, but a powerful one as you are launching or relaunching your real estate practice. 

To end, I’ll reiterate… being a Buyer’s Agent is hard work. There is less concrete produced material to show your work and a monumental amount of behind the scenes work that goes into a single showing let alone a successful, 5 Star closing. Most of us are driven by a need to, “Look good and be right.” but in that pursuit, don’t allow your needs to jeopardize the representation of your client.