Hello Dan in Atlanta,

The good news for you is that you are in Atlanta and you have many great
choices. I am helping my daughter and her husband research for a house there
at this time.They live there and I am on the internet end of the search.
The trick is to decide on the area then pick an agent who really knows that
SPECIFIC area well. I suggested that before they contact an agent, they
become as knowledgeable as possible by driving through all the target
neighborhoods and stopping to talk to the residents for local gossip on
homes on the market or coming on the market, and that way she can better
judge the quality of the agent's advice. The residents are generally not shy
about revealing the pros and cons of their neighborhood, and they know the
untold stories on the homes for sale. Remember that a real estate agent
cannot tell you everything that neighbors can.

Go on your own and look at any home you like. On listed homes, the seller's
agent will want to make the sale, and thus the full commission. They may
talk you into doing it without a buyer's agent. Or, you may like the agent,
and they can put on a buyer agent hat and help you on homes they do not have
listed. A few years ago, and possibly in some places now, there was no such
thing as a buyer's agent. All agents represented the seller, but the real
world relationship that built up between the agent looking for a house with
you clouded that. Certainly there were agents who were working more for the
buyer when they were supposed to be working for the seller because that got
them to a sale. But no agent legally represented the buyer no matter how
friendly they were to the buyer. If you see a home you like, tell the agent
you will be back in touch as soon as you line up a buyer agent if you feel
like you need to do that. Look also at for sale by owners. You can buy those
with no agent by getting a lawyer to write your offer. You will have to
decide if the price is right, the lawyer will not know. In some cases, a
buyer agent can contact a for sale by owner seller and negotiate a
commission agreement for a one time showing to a named client.

You can visit a firm that has agents active in the area of your interest and
ask their sales manager to recommend a couple of their agents compatible
with your preferences . Or, you can call a few new owners of homes recently
bought, and ask them for their comments on their buyer agent. You may be
faced with a buyer agent contract or agreement of exclusivity. Careful with
that. You may get locked in for too long with someone you don't like or who
is performing poorly. Try doing it with a gentleman's agreement and see how
it goes. I do not know the current custom on that, but I would favor trying
out an agent with only a handshake agreement and the understanding that if
things were not going well for either side, either could move on. There are
buyer agent agreements where you are paying the agent and have total
independence. I assume you want the kind where the agent gets paid by the
listing broker from the commissions of the sale. The seller is paying the
agreed total commission, so it is no additional cost to the seller if you
come with a buyer agent. It just costs the listing broker/agent part of
their commission they would have earned if they handled both sides..

By the way, you can help me. You are researching local homes by yourself
how? Is there a firm in Atlanta that has the MLS listings on-line? There are
some partials on realtor.com, but certainly not all, and there are many
errors in those listings. In some areas, it is possible to register with a
broker and gain access to MLS but I do not know the extent of the obligation
to that broker by doing so or if that is possible in Atlanta..

SkyBlue



Dan wrote:

I am in the process of seeking a (new) buyer's agent/broker. I would
like to pick a better match for me this time, so this will require a
little more time to dedicate to researching, interviewing, etc, during
business hours than I can dedicate right now. It might be a week or
three before I can do all this.

In the meantime, in non-business hours, I've been researching possible
homes, and have identified a few I would like to look at inside.

My question is: if I contact the seller or seller's agent directly to
arrange a viewing, am I going to have difficulty with the sellers
wanting to avoid paying my agent's commision later on? I am in Atlanta,
GA, in case there are local customs at play. Is this just a horrible
idea for some other reason I'm not seeing?

It's very frustrating sitting on my hands while my ability to spend time
finding an agent is on hold.