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How does a home buyer find a real estate agent in real life as opposed to the show House Hunters
By robertearl | July 25, 2007
One of the more popular shows on HGTV is House Hunters, where Suzzane Whang highlights the process of a buyer or a couple buying a home who are attended around to 3 homes by a real estate agent. After seeing the three homes and a strategically placed commercial break the buyer comes to the real estate agent office to fill out a one page contract form. After another strategically placed ad for The Home Depot, viola, the buyer has the home and we get the opportuinty to drop in on them 1-2 months after they have moved into the property they selected. (Somehow, they always get the one that they selected, but I am getting ahead ov myself.) All of this half hour, made for TV house hunting got me to thinking, How realistic is House Hunter as compared to what I do as an agent every day?
Don’t get me wrong, if House Hunter called today to ask me to be an agent on the show I would jump at the opportunity. I am just pointing out some of the differences between the show version and the real version of buying a home. Over the course of the next few postings I will be reviewing the House Hunter process with the Actual home buying process while showing some of the glaring and subtle differences along with providing some food for thought for potential home buyers.
Part One of a Nine Part Series
House Hunters Question #1, How does the home buyer end up finding and selecting an agent?
When we are shown the home buyer in the show, they are usually describing how there current living situation and conditions are not working out and what they don’t like about their current property. The ideal, overused “plot” is the husband or wife that has a hobby or painting or writing or music and how they are currently forced to use part of the living room as there studio.
Next scene shows the buyers with the real estate section of the newspaper spread out in front of them or they are sitting in front of an internet browser randomly selecting properties. While both of these activities do occur, the show eliminates some of the steps that will ultimately end up saving the home buyer lots of time and stress.
How it works in the real world, removed from TV Land. In todays internet age, it have been reported in multiple surveys that anywhere from 70-80% of potential buyers begin their home search on the internet. The next step that they take is contacting and selecting an agent to actually show them homes. This brings up two very important factors that buyers need to consider. 1.) Is the agent that they are contacting for a certain proprty already under contract to represent the best interest of the Seller of the home? 2.) Is the agent that they are contacting familiar with the home or area that they are interested in and are they an active agent or are they not very busy and therefore they are just sitting around waiting and hoping that a buyer will call in on an office listing. You see, the average agent in the US sells 2-3 homes per year. That’s right, 2-3. If you take the total number of homes sold divided by the total number of licensed agents, you get a number between 2 and 3. This means that alot of agent are not selling any homes. What does that mean to you? You might end up getting stuck with an agent that will be doing on the job training at your time and expense, vs working with a top producing real estate team.
Next, in HGTV House Hunters, we never see the agent that has been selected taking the time to meet with the home buyers in the the agents office to determine exactly what the prospective buyers are looking for and taking the time to explain the whole buying process.
How it really works: Most buyers make the time to interview an agent or multiple agents. The agent will take the time to consult the home buyers to find out exactly what they are looking for, explain to them the entire home buying process and provide for the home buyers the required local, state, and federal disclosures, especially in the area of Megan’s Law and the like. While glossed over in the show, this step is vital to setting up a good foundation for the rest of the Northern Virginia home buying process.
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