Texas Realtors (1 Viewer)

BarrieJ3

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Hey y'all,

So obviously Barrientos clan is in Texas now. Landed a week ago, staying in temporary housing.

Never been to Texas before, don't know the areas, and planned on just leasing a house for a year while we settled in. But as we found out, that's just not in our nature.

Long story short, we're quickly trying to squeeze finding and buying a house within a very short window. Understand market is en fuego, and way more people than homes. I've always found realtors to be kind of a waste or parasite (paid wayyyy beyond the value they provide, sorry to the realtors here), but might as see if anyone here has a friend or relative to use (might as well help out someone rather than hand over commission to a stranger).

We were looking at the greater Austin area, but have expanded out to Lake Conroe, San Marcos, Georgetown - basically anywhere.
 
Hey y'all,

So obviously Barrientos clan is in Texas now. Landed a week ago, staying in temporary housing.

Never been to Texas before, don't know the areas, and planned on just leasing a house for a year while we settled in. But as we found out, that's just not in our nature.

Long story short, we're quickly trying to squeeze finding and buying a house within a very short window. Understand market is en fuego, and way more people than homes. I've always found realtors to be kind of a waste or parasite (paid wayyyy beyond the value they provide, sorry to the realtors here), but might as see if anyone here has a friend or relative to use (might as well help out someone rather than hand over commission to a stranger).

We were looking at the greater Austin area, but have expanded out to Lake Conroe, San Marcos, Georgetown - basically anywhere.
There are some beautiful places down there. I am about an hour away. Don’t have any realtor contacts down there but good luck with your search and let me know once you get a game started up :)
 
There are some beautiful places down there. I am about an hour away. Don’t have any realtor contacts down there but good luck with your search and let me know once you get a game started up :)
Yeah, definitely gorgeous. To be comfortable, we were looking at leasing a nice place, but realized all of a sudden we were looking at spending $5k+ a month just to lease. Couldn't stomach $120k+ over two years that we wouldn't recoup.

So now we've just decided to grab a house towards the lower end of our purchase range out in the country or near one of the lakes just to have for a fun year or two (since stuck at home with kids during pandemic now anyways). Can sell after for close to no loss or just keep it as a vacation/lake house.

FOR REALTORS OR TX FOLKS Is it normal to have to use a different realtor for every area? We have a solid list of 30 houses across 2-3 hours drive and just need to see them all and pick one. But we're stuck having to organize various houses and sections with different realtors, it's a logistic nightmare. Wish there was just a company we can hand the list over to, and they take care of this.
 
You need to enlist the services of a buyer's agent :tup:
Yeah maybe we've just run into some weird agents. Used both Keller Williams reps and Berkshire Hathaway, and both simply said we'll make some referrals and you can go schedule those homes with another agent, it's not in our area.

Super strange and not what we've had with previous home buying experiences, but maybe this is how it is when there are a crap ton more buyers than houses available. Sending out emails now to various agents seeing who will just handle the entire scheduling thing.
 
Yeah maybe we've just run into some weird agents. Used both Keller Williams reps and Berkshire Hathaway, and both simply said we'll make some referrals and you can go schedule those homes with another agent, it's not in our area.

Super strange and not what we've had with previous home buying experiences, but maybe this is how it is when there are a crap ton more buyers than houses available. Sending out emails now to various agents seeing who will just handle the entire scheduling thing.
In dallas you'll find an agent that will work with you on Dallas, but not show houses in Plano, Frisco, Arlington. You might find better luck narrowing your search down to an area first, then find the best agent for that area.
 
I had the opposite experience when I bought in the Houston area 3 years ago. Before realtors showed you a house they wanted to sign you to a contract that required you to use them for whatever house you wound up buying. I shopped around until I found a realtor that waived that restriction.

Find the right realtor first, then go after the house.
 
Hey y'all,

So obviously Barrientos clan is in Texas now. Landed a week ago, staying in temporary housing.

Never been to Texas before, don't know the areas, and planned on just leasing a house for a year while we settled in. But as we found out, that's just not in our nature.

Long story short, we're quickly trying to squeeze finding and buying a house within a very short window. Understand market is en fuego, and way more people than homes. I've always found realtors to be kind of a waste or parasite (paid wayyyy beyond the value they provide, sorry to the realtors here), but might as see if anyone here has a friend or relative to use (might as well help out someone rather than hand over commission to a stranger).

We were looking at the greater Austin area, but have expanded out to Lake Conroe, San Marcos, Georgetown - basically anywhere.

In Michigan the seller pays the commission for both the listing and selling agent. So as a buyer in Michigan I'm always using a real estate agent seeing that it's not coming out of my pocket. Not sure how it is in Texas, but seeing that you don't have a clue about the market it would make sense to find a realtor.
 
I don't know about Texas, but here in New York I enlisted the help of a "buyer's agent" when my family wanted to get out of the city (NO WAY I WAS SENDING MY KIDS TO BUFFALO HIGH SCHOOLS). The buyer's agent was able to work with other realtors to find houses they were selling and had a day set up for me and my lady to tour a bunch of them - we literally spent a whole Sunday touring house after house after house. But said buyer's agent found us our perfect home and I don't regret it for one second. That woman earned every cent she got.
 
I don’t know if it’s the same in Austin but here in Houston each agent takes 3% of the purchase price so 6% of your sale price goes to them. That’s a lot of money so if you don’t get excellent service then kick them to the curb. You pretty much have to use a buyers agent because they make it nearly impossible for you to see houses without one. I never saw a selling agent - the buyers agent does all the work taking you to see houses.

Find yourself a good agent - shop around until you’re happy. Getting a recommendation is best. I think they can get a little spoiled because they get lots of money and the way the system is set up you have to use them. The only fortunate thing is that its relatively easy to get a realtor license so there are tons of them to choose from.
 
+1 on the buyer's agent, when we bought our house our realtor showed us houses in 3 different counties and setup all the appointments. Seller pays the commission.
 
Standard real estate vigorish in my area is 7% of the first $200,000 and 2.5% of the balance of the selling price, and buyer's agent and seller's agent split that 45%/55%. It is now illegal for a single agent to act on behalf of both seller and buyer.

Seller never pays the commission, because they work fees into the price. Buyer always pays the commission, no matter who cuts the cheque. It's just the same way that there is only ever one tax payer.
 
Where I'm at the realtor you work with gets 3% commission - paid by the seller of course. When I selected my realtor I picked one that was willing to give me 2% of that 3%. Got a nice size check on closing day to help furnish the house. Just go to the realtor's website and spam like 50 realtors with the same message. Let them know the range of the house you're looking at and you'll probably find someone willing to work with you.
 
Where I'm at the realtor you work with gets 3% commission - paid by the seller of course. When I selected my realtor I picked one that was willing to give me 2% of that 3%. Got a nice size check on closing day to help furnish the house. Just go to the realtor's website and spam like 50 realtors with the same message. Let them know the range of the house you're looking at and you'll probably find someone willing to work with you.

Also worth noting you can buy a lot of chips with that 2% of your house value if you already have the furniture.
 

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