Buyers Agent Explained: Everything Seattle Homebuyers Need to Know
Are you considering becoming a buyer in today’s competitive Seattle real estate market? If so, you might be wondering, “What exactly is a buyer’s agent?” With the current market dynamics, where demand often outstrips supply, navigating the home buying process can be challenging.
In this blog post, we’ll break down everything you need to know about buyer’s agents: what they do, how much they cost, whether you need one, and if there are any potential downsides. By the end of this read, you’ll have a clear understanding of how a buyer’s agent can help you secure your dream home in the bustling Seattle area.
Let’s dive in and explore the invaluable role of a buyer’s agent in your home buying journey!
What Is A Buyer’s Agent?
Navigating the Seattle real estate market can be daunting, especially with the current imbalance between high demand and limited inventory. If you’re considering buying a home in this competitive landscape, understanding the role of buyer’s agents is essential.
Buyer’s agent is a dedicated real estate agent who represents your interests as a buyer, helping you find and secure the perfect property while guiding you through the complexities of the home buying process. Then Buyer’s Agent represents you, helps you negotiate terms and helps you find the right property that suits you.
A buyer’s agent plays a crucial role in making the home buying process smoother and more efficient. Here are the key responsibilities they handle to ensure you find and secure the perfect property:
Helping The Buyer Find Suitable Properties
One of the primary tasks of a buyer’s agent is to identify properties that match your preferences and needs. They use their extensive network, access to multiple listing services (MLS), and local market knowledge to curate a list of homes that fit your criteria, saving you valuable time and effort.
Conducting Market Research and Analysis
Buyer’s agents conduct thorough market research and analysis to provide you with current data on property values, neighborhood trends, and comparable sales. This information helps you make informed decisions and ensures you’re not overpaying for your new home.
Arranging Property Viewings
Scheduling and coordinating property viewings is another critical responsibility of a buyer’s agent. They organize tours of potential homes, allowing you to explore each property at your convenience. Their presence during viewings also provides an opportunity to ask questions and get professional insights, as well relay any question you might have to the seller by communicating to the seller agent.
Assisting with the Negotiation Process With Listing Agent
Buyer’s agents are skilled negotiators who advocate for the best interests of home buyers. They handle the negotiation process, aiming to secure the best possible price and terms for your new home. Their expertise can make a significant difference in competitive markets like Seattle.
Coordinating Home Inspections and Appraisals
Once you’ve found a property you like, the buyer’s agent coordinates essential inspections and appraisals. As a local real estate agent, they recommend reputable inspectors and appraisers, arrange appointments, and ensure you understand the results. This step is vital for uncovering any potential issues and confirming the property’s value before you purchase a home.
Providing Guidance on Home Buying Financing Options
Buyer’s agents assist you in navigating the complex world of home financing. They can recommend trusted mortgage brokers, help you understand different loan options, purchase agreement and guide you through the pre-approval process. Their goal is to ensure you have the best financing strategy in place for your purchase.
By handling these responsibilities, a buyer’s agent ensures that your home buying journey is as seamless and stress-free as possible, allowing you to focus on finding your dream home in the Seattle market.
Benefits of Working with a Buyer’s Agent
Working with a buyer’s agent offers numerous advantages, especially in a competitive and dynamic market like Seattle. Here are some key benefits:
Access to Exclusive Listings and Market Insights
Buyer’s agents have access to exclusive listings that may not be widely advertised. Their connections and insider knowledge can provide you with opportunities to view properties before they hit the broader market. Additionally, they offer valuable insights into market trends, helping you make well-informed decisions.
Professional Negotiation Skills
One of the most significant benefits of working with a buyer’s agent is their professional negotiation skills. They advocate on your behalf to secure the best possible price and terms for your purchase. Their experience in negotiating real estate deals can be a decisive factor in winning a bid, especially in Seattle’s competitive market.
Time and Stress Savings for the Buyer
The home buying process can be time-consuming and stressful. A buyer’s agent streamlines this process by handling property searches, scheduling viewings, and managing paperwork. This allows you to focus on your daily life while they manage the details, reducing the overall stress associated with buying a home.
Expert Advice and Support Throughout the Buying Process
From the initial search to closing the deal, a buyer’s agent provides expert advice and support every step of the way. They guide you through each phase of the buying process, including making offers, negotiating terms, coordinating inspections, and understanding contracts. Their expertise ensures that you’re making informed decisions and that the entire process runs smoothly.
By leveraging these benefits, a buyer’s agent can make your home buying experience in Seattle more efficient, less stressful, and ultimately more successful, helping you secure the home of your dreams with confidence.
What is a buyer’s agent? Well, I’m glad you asked, because that probably means you’re thinking about becoming a buyer in today’s real estate market here in the Seattle area, and it can be a very tricky process to get into because we have a lot more buyers than we have inventory right now, as I make this video. That might not be the case for you, but we’re going to get into what is a buyer’s agent? How much does it cost? Do you need one? Are there any downsides? We’ll get into all of that here in this video. This is Emily Cressey, your digitally-enabled Puget Sound community advisor. Hi, my name is Emily Cressey. I have been investing in real estate for the past two decades, and I’m a real estate broker here in the greater Seattle area. I actually live in Shoreline in North Seattle.
So today, we’re talking about what is a buyer’s agent, and what that means is simply it’s a real estate agent or broker who is representing the buyer in a transaction. In every real estate transaction, there’s a seller who has the house for sale, and there’s the buyer who is buying the house. Now, each of these two separate parties can have their own real estate agent to represent them. Someone like me, I could choose, any real estate agent could choose whether they want to work with the seller or whether they want to work with the buyer, and that is just on a case-by-case basis. Some people specialize in working with one or the other, and some people do both. Most real estate agents do both because they like to have the opportunity to work with their clients over time. First, they might help their client buy a house, and when the client sells, they’ll help them sell a house and buy their next home. So most real estate agents do both.
The question is what is their role in this specific transaction? If their role is to work with the buyer, then they are a buyer’s agent. So what does the buyer’s agent do? The buyer’s agent has a fiduciary responsibility to help the buyer, represent the buyer, advise the buyer, keep the buyer’s information confidential. They are helping the buyer, and they are not helping the seller. The seller’s agent, on the other hand, represents the seller and negotiates on their behalf with the buyer’s. So whenever you are in a transaction like this, it makes sense to have an agent that represents just you. Sometimes, there could be one agent in the middle that would help both parties, help the seller and help the buyer, and that is called a dual agent. So it’s one person helping both parties, and that can be a little bit tricky because the buyer wants to get the property for less, seller wants to get the property for more, and it’s harder for that dual agent to advise them when they have conflicting interests. So if you are a buyer, you will be working a buyer’s agent.
Now, how much does it cost to work with a buyer’s agent? The good news is nothing for you. When the seller lists the home with their seller’s real estate agent, they will say how much commission they want to pay. Typically, they’ll pay something like 3% of the purchase price to the seller’s agent who represents them, and then they’ll offer 3% of the purchase price to the buyer’s agent who brings the buyer. So that cost is entirely borne by the seller. There’s no money out of pocket to work with a buyer’s agent. Under these typical circumstances, you could always hire them to do specific tasks, but in this typical scenario, there’s no out-of-pocket costs to work with your buyer’s agent, nor is there any costs that you need to pay at closing or any other time. The real estate broker is paid by the seller. So there’s no reason as a buyer for you not to be represented by a buyer’s agent.
Now, what will the buyer’s agent do? What’s the process look like once you’re working with the buyer’s agent? So let’s step through that. A lot of people… We have this sort of notion now that everything is instantaneous and done online. And so a lot of people feel that they can just scroll through the MLS. When they see the property they want, they go and look at it in person and make an offer and it’s done. Working with a good buyer’s agent can actually offer you a lot more value, especially if you start with them early in the process. Most people or buyers go through different phases. It kind of starts at what I call the dreaming phase. We’re thinking big. We’re wanting something different or wanting a change or wanting to move forward with our life. And so we know that a new house is going to be part of that plan, but we’re still kind of trying to narrow things down.
Do I want to be in Everett? Do I want to be in West Seattle? Am I over in Bellevue? Where can I afford to live? Where would I like to live? Do I want a townhouse, a condo, a duplex, a single-family home? All of these questions. School districts. What’s my financing going to look like? Is this a green space where I have limited access or use of the property? There are a lot of different things to consider, and those types of questions get asked as you’re coming out of the dreaming phase and into the planning phase. So one of my roles as your buyer’s agent in this case would be to help you identify those questions and start asking those questions, start to gather the information and give it to you in a way that’s useful for you to take this big world of “somewhere out there is a house for me” and start to hone it into where you would like to go. I always encourage my buyers to look at a lot of property before they feel that it’s time for them to buy.
So even if you’re just starting, sometimes looking at 10 or 15, 20 homes, we’ll give you a much better idea of what you’re looking for. You might think that you want something over here and you end up changing your criteria and going over here. It’s very common. I see it all the time. In my particular case, I looked at one house that was a townhouse in Lynnwood, and I was looking for my first home. And then I looked all over. I looked in Green Lake. I looked in Beacon Hill. And then I eventually came back to that townhouse in Lynnwood and bought it, but I needed to look at the other options. I needed to educate myself in the marketplace before I felt confident that that was the home for me. So I really do think researching and getting to know the market on a personal level before you feel the pressure of writing offers and got to make something happen, I think that’s really the way to go. If you have the time and flexibility to do that, I’d be happy to help you with that process.
So once you’ve kind of started to narrow in on what’s happening with the market and the type of housing that you’re interested in, the next step is to get your financing lined up. And as a real estate broker, I work with a lot of different lenders. I have a few that I really love, and depending on sort of your profile and what type of house you’re going for, I can help direct you. Are we looking for someone that specializes in investment loans and single-family loans and VA, FHA loans. Even I had a client who was wanting to buy a mobile home, and that takes a different type of lender entirely. So there’s a lot of different types of lenders, but we’ll find someone that works with the type of situation that you are trying to put together.
So we’ll get you in front of a lender, and this I think is one of the most powerful parts of the planning process because just by sitting down for those 15 minutes with a lender or on the phone or in person or on Zoom, we can get a much better idea of what your payments will look like, and thus what you can afford. I had a client who was looking at homes between 300 and 500,000 and not finding a lot that they liked. Then they went to the lender and found out that they could get qualified for an $800,000 loan, which really opened things up for them, and they still didn’t want to buy at the very top of their price range, but made them feel more comfortable starting to look in the $600,000 range, where there were a lot more of the types of homes that they were hoping for.
So getting in front of the lender and finding out what your numbers look like for down payment, closing costs and monthly payment is very helpful in terms of kind of changing you from that dreaming, what-if phase to “Okay. Now we know what we can do. Let’s do this.” Next step as a buyer’s agent will be to start looking for properties that you’re actually considering putting an offer on, and these days, it can take quite a bit of time to find that property, because there are so many buyers in the marketplace. You find one you like. There are three offers on it. Even if you put in an offer, you might not be the winner of the offer. Sometimes, people are having to look an offer on two to three homes before they decide “This is it. This is one I really love. I want to be more aggressive on my offer and make sure I lock it in.” So just be prepared for that. That is happening in the market.
And again, when you watch this, it might be different. So make sure you contact me, and we’ll talk through what the market looks like at the point in time that you’re making your decisions, but knowing what’s going on with the paperwork and being prepared to act quickly in this type of an environment is extremely important. So what I like to do is have a paperwork meeting when we’re transitioning from that research, looking for education, and now we’re getting ready to actually make an offer. We will sit down and go over… I’ll spend an hour or two hours or however much time you need to feel really comfortable with the paperwork. We’ll look at the purchase contract, your financing contingencies, your inspection contingencies, appraisal contingencies, how those affect the strength of your offer and whether or not you would be ever in a position that you would want to waive any of the contingencies to make your offer stronger, or whether you feel more comfortable always leaving them in a place. Just depending on what’s going on with the market and what makes your offer more or less competitive, we’ll put together some strategy on that.
So once you understand the paperwork, once you understand the market, then you will be able to make offers with confidence. When you go out and look at a home, you’ll know if you love it. You know if it’s priced right. You’ll know what the most you’d be willing to pay for it as, and if all of those factors line up, you’ll feel very confident when you put your offer on it, that you’re paying what it’s worth to you, and that you are able to afford it and you would be happy there. So I feel that education and understanding the process and not being rushed is a very important part of having the buyer’s experience be successful in a real estate transaction, and that’s why as a buyer’s agent myself here in the North Seattle area, I like to take the extra time to offer my clients full service brokerage.
I used to work for a discount broker, and a lot of people who came through there didn’t actually like it. They liked the idea of saving money, but they realized at the end of the day, they were missing out on understanding and being confident in the decisions that they were making. So I have switched my model, and a lot of clients I’m finding really value the idea of working closely one-on-one, having advisor to take them through all these steps and give them that understanding they need. I want to empower you as the buyer to make your own excellent decisions when you’re buying your next home or investment property.
So I hope this helps you understand what a buyer’s agent is and what the role of a buyer’s agent is. I have an additional document that’s actually a pamphlet from Washington State, that’s called the agency pamphlet. It has a cool name, cooler than what I just said, but it will explain to you what exactly these things are in legalistic terms, buyer’s agent, seller’s agent, dual agent. This has been a summary, but when we work together, I will provide you an actual copy of that. If you’d like to get it, just shoot me an email or a message here, and I will make sure that my assistant gets that out to you. So this has been Emily Cressey. If you have further questions, drop them in the comments or feel free to reach out one-on-one. I would love to work with you and educate you so you can feel like you are making your own excellent decision in your real estate journey. Thanks so much for watching. Let me know how I can help. I am always here to serve.
