Realtor Dilema

Realtor Dilema

I've posted before about this, but this past Friday was the straw that broke this camels back.

My H and I bet w/ a realtor who told me he had just gotten a 'great' apartment that I HAD to go see right away because it wouldn't last. So we rushed from work to meet him. He was so rude to us. He asked to salary info, etc. and when we told him, he said that we wouldn't be able to buy anything because we don't make enough. We've been pre-approved by 2 major banks for a mortgage! We're not rich, but we're not welfare cases either! He said that coop boards wouldn't want us. We tried to explain to him that his job is to find us what we're looking for, and ours is knowing what we can afford and passing muster w/ the board. I finally told him that he couldn't judge us on our salaries alone. For all he knows, we could be paying cash: I told him, you don't know how much money we have in the bank. THEN he asked me how much money we had. And I told him it was none of his buisiness. Which it's not. As far as I'm concerned, his job is to show me thing in the pricerange I want to spend. Anything after that is my business. What he wanted to do was act as a funnel and exclude us or prevent us from seeing things not because we can't afford it, but because he 'thinks' we 'may' not be approved by the board. To make an already long story short, he showed us a dump that's been on the market for 4 months in a dangerous area that I wouldn't let a dog live in. It wasn't even the area he told me about when I made the appointment. So I'm now finally giving up on realtors and only going to open houses or ower sales.

This is not the first realtor to behave in a similar manner or be inappropriate and/or rude. Has anyone else been subjected to this king of treatment? Is it just this area?

Realtor Dilema

sorry that this has happened.
I'd suggest looking for a buyer's agent. They work on YOUR behalf..and look for apts/houses/co-ops, etc for you.
They do NOT get a commission on the sale from the seller. I believe they negoitate the % with you directly.
Therefore, no pressure for you to see their listings whether it suits your po rfile or not.

Cheer up- seems that you have hit a few bad apples. R u looking in Manhatten only? (I wouldn't live in the city if it was as cheap as the boroughs...just doesnt suit us.)
I'm pulling for you!

Thanks *NM*

Buying Agent

I do believe that a buying agent does get a percentage of the seller's price (atleast our's is.) At any rate, they DO work for YOU!

I would do some research on who is reliable and qualified by the realtors and maybe go through a well-known/respected realtor in your area. It worked for us. . .

I wish you luck! :)

Nancy

Realtor Dilema

That`s really lousy! But I know how you feel. The house purchasing process can be so stressful, and unfortunately, it really doesn`t have to be that way. There are just so many people who just don`t have good people skills, and there are so many different people you deal with through the whole process that it gets to be a case of 'too many chefs.'

The agent who we had to deal with in purchasing our house had me in such a panic for the couple of months it took for us to close on the house. I believe more than once she left threatening messages on the machine that if this or that didn`t happen, the deal would terminate, and the homeowners would move on and accept another offer. :(

Never, ever let the agent know just how much you love a house. We tried to play it cool with her, but she knew from the moment we stepped out of the house the very first time we saw it that we wanted it because we were too eager to get back to the office and give an offer. And she was a little shocked when we went straight to a full price offer .. but that`s how the market was playing. We had seen houses with up to 15 offers on them, and the accepted offers at the time were going well above asking price. So, we didn`t want to lose this one and unfortunately had to tip our hand that we really loved this house.

The one thing we never did was tell any agent exactly how high we were willing to go, and we never gave them a definite price .. we always gave them a vague range below what we actually could afford, but basically always tried to blow off the question somehow.

I know you`ve had a rough experience, but keep in mind, even when realtors are nice, no matter how nice they are, they are still working for the seller.

Good Luck!!

Realtor Dilema

Thanks. I've tried calling reputable places like Century 21, and the realtors have been just as rude. We've actually found THE place, and it's an owner selling. Unfortunately, her mother is ill and she called to let us know she'll have to put the sale on hold and would call us back when she was able to concentrate. We hadn't made an offer, just told her we were interested. So we're hoping she'll call back. But dealing w/ realtors and all their negativity has gotten me nervous about board approval since everything we're looking at are co-ops. My mom thinks they're just trying to tear us down so we loose confidence and buy whatever heap they're trying to unload. I don't know about that... But I hate having to deal with people who are constantly negative. If we listen to people like that, we'll never get anywhere.

Thanks for the advice. I'm ranting, I know, but it's so demoralizing - especially when you go in with a good attitude, trusting and upbeat.

Wow

I am so shocked at the difficulty in purchasing a house in LI and NYC....we had no problems at all with getting what we wanted, without the attitude. It is kind of funny, because our agent refers to us as her own kids! ;)

I can also say that realtor.com helped me out considerably with the search process...allowed me to look at the basics and narrow down, or have them narrowed down before the agent got back to me.

Hope things get better! :)

Nancy