With over 60,000 real estate agents working in Toronto, how can you ensure your agent is working properly to best represent your interests?
In the video above (you can read full transcript below), I describe what to look for.
This tip is part of a series as I launch a new free, 1-hour webinar to get home buyers ready ahead of the fall market. Sign up for my full Home Buying Strategies webinar to help you get an edge over other buyers in a competitive market like Toronto while steering clear of costly errors.
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Full Video Transcript
So real estate agents don't have the best reputation. They're probably right up there with used car salesmen and for a very good reason. And not because they are all unethical, which I think is the common assumption a lot of people have.
From my experience, the bigger issue is that in a market like Toronto, there are 60,000 agents. And if you just look at the numbers, on average, most agents are only selling maybe three or four houses a year. And when you only sell three or four houses a year, you're not very experienced. And you don't really know what you're doing. You're kind of hacking your way through this business and trying to make a sale.
And I think that's how a lot of home buyers feel, that their agents are really just opening up lock boxes and letting them into homes and aren't really advising them. And I think as a home buyer, one of the biggest mistakes buyers can make is to assume that their agent is really representing them and doing the proper due diligence and properly advising them.
Because a lot of what we do in my office, my agents, myself, half of the time, we spend worrying about what can go wrong in a real estate transaction. I mean, we meet every Tuesday and all the time we're talking about ways to mitigate risk, ways to avoid some of the downsides that can happen when in real estate.
And I think with a lot of agents, when they're not selling a lot of houses, they don't even know what the risks are. So they don't even know what to look into to kind of mitigate some of the downsides.
So again, as a home buyer, I think it's important to not just blindly assume, you know, that your agent is doing the right due diligence, that your agent is advising you properly on the value of the home before you're bidding on it.
And really, this is one of the key goals of this course is really to empower home buyers tomorrow so that they're more knowledgeable and kind of look at what their agent's doing and assess whether they're doing a good job or not, especially in a market that's competitive like Toronto.
When you're about to make an offer on a home, is your agent telling you what the home's worth? Are they giving you a reasonable value range based on data and numbers and comparables and facts? Or are they just asking you how much you're willing to pay and what your max price is?
So again, I think as a home buyer, you want to step back and kind of think about what your agent is doing, not just assume they're always doing the best job. And again, it's not necessarily because the agents out there are bad.
Many of them just don't know what to do and they're not quite as experienced. You know, our agents sell, you know, maybe 15 houses a year. They're very busy. They know what to worry about mainly because we talk every single week.
So hopefully with this course, you're going to be more empowered and you're going to be thinking a little bit more about what your agent is doing so that even if they're not doing everything to protect your best interest, at least you're empowered with a little bit more information so that you can do a little bit more due diligence. You can do a little bit more research on your own so that you can move forward far more confident that you're making a good realistic decision in the future.
I hope you found that buyer tip helpful. If you're buying a home in the Toronto area's very competitive housing market and want an edge. Sign up for my free one hour webinar on the top 10 strategies that are going to give you that advantage.
You're going to learn the number one thing that you need to know when deciding what price to offer on a home. Why price alone is not the only factor that leads someone to win in a multiple offer situation and how to find value in good homes that other buyers overlook.
Click this link or click on the image below to sign up now to give yourself that advantage in Toronto's housing market.
John Pasalis is President of Realosophy Realty. A specialist in real estate data analysis, John’s research focuses on unlocking micro trends in the Greater Toronto Area real estate market. His research has been utilized by the Bank of Canada, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Follow on Twitter: @JohnPasalis
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August 17, 2023
Advice |