Home Buyer Complaints About Real Estates Agents in Barrington IL
You might wonder how I know about complaints against other real estate agents in Barrington IL. The answer is quite simple. Often buyers get very disillusioned about the real estate agent they have been working with and decide it’s time to find some-one better suited for their needs. I have often become the replacement buyers agent.
- What are the complaints I have listened to when deciding whether to work with home buyer clients in the Barrington IL area?
- Why not every buyers agents will be the best choice choice for a home buyer.
- What should you look for in a buyers agents, before making a choice.
- Why buyers agents in Barrington are not all the same.
More Articles on Buyers Agents
[table id=10 /]As a Buyers Agent – I Decide Who To Work With
Not every match between Barrington buyers agents and home buyers are automatically made in heaven. If a buyer comes to me looking to work with me I need to know if they have already been working with other agents. Ethically none of us should work with any client if they are currently working with another buyers agent.
I will decide wether to work with buyers who have already been working with other agents, based on the issues they have experienced and also how those issues were handled.
Top 3 Home Buyer Complaints About Real Estate Agents in Barrington IL
To the top three buyers complaints, here they are:
- Lack of knowledge of the area/s in which a buyer is looking at homes to buy.
- Lack of patience with the buyers.
- A constant sales pitch to buy a home.
Let’s dig into these a little.
Lack of knowledge of the area. This is especially important for out of town buyers. If you know very little to nothing about an area the questions you are going to ask are going to be spread across many different subjects. From information about the villages of Barrington, the real estate in each and differences, property values in each as well as schools, shopping, traveling and other infrastructure information, buyers will have a lot of questions.
- Home question examples: Are there any golf course homes, waterfront homes or horse properties and so on.
- Other question examples: Which Barrington has what I need, how close am I to schools, transport, grocery stores, leisure activities.
Home buyers are always well advised to chose a local agent and by that I mean one that either lives in or very close to the communities under consideration, or one that has worked in the community for several years. It’s only through experience do we learn about the community giving us the ability to answer all your questions. Of course we don’t profess to know the answer to everything, after 20 years of living in Barrington and selling homes here, I still learn new things almost every day.
Licensed Illinois brokers can sell real estate anywhere in Illinois. Some service huge areas of real estate, especially in Chicagoland. The question buyers must consider is, do I want a broker that sells all over the area or one that sells locally.
Lack of Patience. Home buying has changed. Since the economic tumble and housing market decline, buyers personas have changed and changed a lot. There are other factors in the process that have also changed. Lending is a big factor in many home purchases. Home selling tied with home buying is also common but contingencies involving home sales are not often welcomed by home sellers. The home buying process can now be a protracted series of events.
I am of course talking about home sales and purchases in Barrington Illinois. Other areas of the country have quite different markets.
Buyers take longer to select a new home. Mortgages take longer to be approved and come October that’s likely to take even longer. A home buyer without cash is more than likely than not, going to have to sell any existing home first. The entire process is very rarely a 30 day process. Cash deals do generally go faster and 30 days should be an easy target for cash buyers.
Some agents just do not have the patience for anything longer. Why? Sometimes it’s desperation, they need money and need sales to go faster. If a buyer cannot get a home chosen and the process started, the broker loses faith in a buyers true intention to buy and may leave them stranded.
Here in Barrington IL, as a wealthy community, buyers often have the ability to buy their next house cash. Because of that, they have the choice of waiting for that almost perfect home. Why wouldn’t they? So the house hunt can take a long time. The relationship between buyer and an impatient agent will likely show quickly. I have often been hired by buyers who needed an agent with more patience. Yes it sometimes does take 2/3 years before home buyers looking for a dream home find the perfect property. That’s OK with me.
The Dreaded Sales Pitch – “Well this house is just what you want, are you ready to make your offer?”
How’s that for a sales pitch? It is actually born of several real estate training programs! After all, aren’t we sales professionals, or sales people? In my mind we are not, but many training programs tell us we are. They spend time giving us scripts on how to get buyers to buy a home.
It reminds me of walking into a car dealership, something I know many of you hate and I certainly dread it. Same is true of furniture stores, no sooner do you walk in the door do you literally get landed upon by a sales person trying to sell you. I do think car dealers are getting better at that though.
Sales or service? It’s a long standing argument in our industry. Are we sales people or are we service people? Personally I hate the idea that we are considered sales people. Maybe that’s because I hate being SOLD. If anyone tries to SELL me, I’ll walk away in a heartbeat.
Selling homes to buyers may indeed be a sales function but I prefer to think of the entire process as a service. I provide buyers the ability to search for homes on my web site, I show them the homes they choose. I offer opinions if requested. I provide community information. I help buyers with offer making strategies, attend home inspections, connect buyers with related service providers. I am a go between during the process of offer to closing and attend the closing. None of that to me is at all “salesy”, it’s all service. Further you’ll never near me utter that one line I quoted above. As a buyers agent in Barrington I leave it to you, my buyer clients, to tell me when you are ready to make an offer on a property.
These are the three common complaints I have experienced when helping buyers who have decided to change buyer agents.
Buyers May Choose The Wrong Buyers Agent
Think about it. We are all human and there are people in life we get along with famously and people we just don’t. So it stands to reason sometimes buyers will choose the wrong agent and conversely buyer agents may choose to work with clients that don’t work out well.
Maybe the agent you chose is not patient, does not know the area well, or becomes that sales pitch agent. That’s not always apparent from the outset. Perhaps the service you receive is not as you expected it to be. Recognizing your mistake is not about saying you made a mistake so much as realizing the connection is not good and likely should be terminated if possible.
How To Avoid Hiring The Wrong Buyers Agent
First establish what is important to you. Is it local knowledge or experience or dedication as a buyers agent. Perhaps specialty training in working with buyers, or relocation. Full time or part time. Do you feel more comfortable with a female or male agent. Do you want an agent or the top dog managing broker? Perhaps someone who has a good grasp of technology, digital signing capability, local resident. There are many, many qualities you can seek out in a buyers agent for your Barrington home purchase.
How do you find out what qualities each buyers agent has? Interview them? There are a couple of ways to achieve that as well. Of course getting a face to face meeting prior to engaging the services of a buyers agent is a logical on. Meet for coffee one day and ask questions. Make sure your buyers agent has the qualities and abilities that are important to you. Another way is by researching the internet. A top buyers agent in Barrington should be providing home buyers with information; both about themselves and about the real estate markets they serve.
Look for information on a buyers agents website about:
- Markets they serve
- Homes for sale in those markets
- Community information
- A blog with helpful information for buyers
- Market reports to show understanding of the markets
- Recent sales or relocation sales
- Buyer testimonials – good ones
- An about me page describing what agent does both professionally and perhaps personally
- Transparency from buyers agent, true opinions
- Easy ways to contact the agent
If you can research online and learn a lot about potential buyer agent candidates, you can help cut out some that clearly would not suit your needs. At a minimum have a chat with any agents you are considering. Better still follow that up with a meeting. You’ll learn much more about a person in a face to face meeting.
Why Buyers Agents Are Not All The Same
If we are licensed in Illinois we can sell real estate in Illinois. That means we can work with buyers, sellers, landlords, tenants, residential and commercial properties.
Some agents prefer to work with sellers, others buyers, but most of us work with a mix of both. If you find a property you love and meet with the listing agent, aka sellers agent, you might decide to buy the property and the listing agent can now be your buyers agent. However they first started out as the sellers agent. If you choose them to be your buyers agent, they are now working for both sellers and buyers. This is perfectly legal in the state of Illinois, however I personally do not agree with it, not at all. It’s called dual agency.
Why would any buyer choose to work with an agent that has already committed to providing the best service to a seller? I don’t understand why but I believe some buyers do it for ease. Some might think it makes the process easier. Let’s quickly address those thoughts:
- It will not make the process easier. There’s really nothing a sellers agent does that cannot be done by any buyers agent.
- Does a listing agent really know more about a property? Maybe marginally but in reality when they listed it, all the information they needed is now published on our Multiple Listing Service (MLS). They may have spent an hour in a house they have never been in before. That’s not a lot of time to learn a house. Most likely any questions a buyer has will need to be asked of the property owner.
Buyers are always better served by having their own buyers agent. Our job is to represent you and only you. The majority of homes are sold with both a sellers agent for the sellers and a buyers agent for the buyers. Buyers agents are normally free to buyers, we are compensated using a well established system of the seller compensating their brokerage and agent who in turns shares some with the buyers agent and brokerage for bringing in the buyer.
About Me as a Barrington IL Area Buyers Agent
All of us have preferences and the same is true in real estate. Some agents prefer working the listing side of home sales, some prefer the buying side. I have always found I have a natural tendency to helping buyers and relocating buyers. It’s not without it’s challenges though but about 70% of my business is working with home buyers.
I furthered my education to work better with buyers but doing a number of designation certifications including Accredited Buyers Agent and Certified Negotiation Expert.
If you would like to receive the benefits of hiring a buyers agent to help you with your next Barrington home purchase, reach out. If we’re a great fit things will go really smoothly, if not neither of us needs to waste time in a working relationship that does not work.
Read my testimonials and then let’s talk. 847-363-3686.
[show-testimonials alias=’Top 3 Buyers Complaints’]
