I have a question, need help from anyone who's bought a home (especially in California, but honestly any state).......
Is there a code of honor? (when it comes to buyer agents)
So I already lost two home bids above. House 1 I went to the open house, saw an agent there, wrongly assumed it was the listing agent and submit an offer through her. Listed 1.298m , we bid 1.385m , in the end lost when it sold for 1.545m.
My buyer agent had no clue about the market. She had no clue how much competition was there. I didn't talk to her again.
House 2, my wife had already been talking on/off through texts with a very nice lady who was a real estate agent. Then we used her as our agent. House 2 we lost because someone else bid at listing price, 1.498m. Again, our agent was in the blind, not really her fault.
So the question is, why even use buyer agents? Why don't I go directly to the selling agent?
I see one home now that is listed at 1.375m For the square feet it is, both wife and I feel like it is very much underpriced - specifically, to drive a bidding war. In fact, doing simply price/sq ft with the averages of the area we are looking in, we feel it should sell for 1.55 to 1.65m.
Now we have two options.
Option 1 - use our buyer agent lady and submit an offer that is inflated to beat competition. Wife and I agree that our max for this house should be 1.6m We think bidding 1.55m would be fair. But again, this is shooting from the hip randomly. Is it too much? Is it too little? We don't know.
Option 2 - use the selling agent. Again, is there a code of honor?
Because I'm about to pursue option 2. The open house had the selling agent. I got his card. I called him tonight and said look, we're interested, we'll use you as our buying agent.
[This means he'll get his ~3% selling fee AND our 2.5% buyer fee. Double dipping.]
So the selling agent says he thinks 1.4m would be good. I said I want to beat any competition. He said initially he advised the sellers to list for 1.425m, but the sellers wanted to list lower at 1.375m because they are looking to sell quickly. I said I want to be the selected offer. So you tell me, do you think 1.425m seals the deal?
Now, he didn't outright say yes. But he definitely hinted that the sellers would love that.
At this point, with him getting a full 6% on the deal, I don't see why he would lie. I think if we submit the offer tomorrow with him, at 1.425m it is going to be accepted?
So am I breaking an honor code and screwing my wife's buyer agent? Do we owe her anything? She's shown us a couple houses. But for the most part, I am the one that finds the home, I'm the one who goes to the open house, or once in a while, she'll do a showing a day or two before, and then I'm the one who tells her yes or no for offering.
I'm just tired of bidding a home price randomly and hoping it sticks. Going through the seller agent, this seems to be the first time I'm getting a "hint" of what value to bid.
This process sounds painful. I kinda feel like I'm betraying our buyer agent lady. If this works out, she'll never know we bought this home. And I'd feel too guilty to tell her we used someone else.
Thoughts?
