Sander Scott, a real estate agent in Traverse City, walks through how to search for homes, schedule showings on Calendly, sign a buyer's agency agreement, and understand how he gets paid. He also explains how to ask sellers for closing cost help.
Now I have access to the hottest properties, sometimes even before they hit the market. Would it make life easier for you if I were to do a search of exactly what you're looking for in terms of price, size, number of bedrooms, number of baths, how much land, etc., etc.? That way you don't have to be constantly calling around on signs or constantly looking on your phone waiting for agents to call or email you back only to find out that it's too late and the property has already sold or is now off the market? Would that make life easier for you? Hey, perfect if it does. To set this up, just book a time on my Calendly calendar and let's get together and we can start making this happen for you. Whether you're looking now or 3 years from now, it's always a good time to start that planning process. Finally, you may or may not have heard that realtors are now required to have a buyer's agency agreement signed prior to— that's right, before showing you as a buyer a home. What I do with my clients is I email them a document. All you have to do is sign it. It's really easy. You can do it right from your phone. This document spells out how I, as your buyer's agent, will get paid should you choose to buy one of the homes that I show you. It does not, and I wanna repeat, it does not lock you into using only me as it only applies to the homes that I show you. Additionally, you may not have to pay me at all because as part of your offer, and this is the value of getting a good negotiator to work with on your behalf, we can ask for what's called closing cost concessions. From the seller to go towards some or all of your closing costs. It's all a part of the negotiation. Also, it may already be built into the listing agreement. That's something that we now find out as we go home by home by home. It could be that the seller— in most cases, I think that will continue— that the seller is already offering a buyer's agent commission, but we won't know that until we start that discovery process, and we have to identify that home by home by home.
