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If you are being provided a relocation package by your current or future employer, congratulations! A relocation package can save you a lot of anxiety and be worth many thousands of dollars.
Getting the maximum benefit from your relocation package does require, however, that you maintain control over which real estate agents assist you. Deciding who will list your home for sale is important, but selecting the buyers' agent who will help you find and buy a new home is even more critical.
The referral fees paid to the relocation companies by participating real estate agents typically amount to 30 to 35 percent of the agent's commission on the transaction. Many of these agents also pay a franchise fee, which usually amounts to an additional 20 percent of their commission, to the brokerage with which they are affiliated that allows them to participate in their brokers' relocation program as a designated "relocation specialist". These fees are in addition to both the 10 to 20 percent, and sometimes more, cut of their commissions they already pay the brokerage with which they work and all of the other out-of-pocket operating expenses they incur. The obvious questions, of course, are how motivated and how skilled is any agent who prices his or her services so cheaply likely to be.
Using an inexperienced or otherwise poorly qualified agent can be very costly to home buyers. The absence of an effective negotiation strategy, and the market information needed to make it work, can easily result in paying one to two percent more to purchase a home than if their agent had been properly prepared and motivated. Buying a home in an area with poor prospects for market average or better appreciation, over the period of only a few years, can have an even much greater cost.
Before meeting with the buyers' agent selected by the relocation company to assist you, you should ask the relocation company counselor the following questions ...
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How specifically was the buyers' agent who the relocation company has assigned to me selected? |
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What relocation package benefits do I forego if I choose to use a buyer's agent other than someone the relocation company recommended? |
To prepare for your meeting with the buyers' agent assigned by the relocation, you may want to review the questions provided on the finding right buyers' agent page on this web site. In addition to the questions listed there, you may want to ask the agent ...
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How long have you been a real estate agent? |
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What is your business experience and training? |
If you are relocating to the northwest Dallas suburbs, and want to work with a buyers' agent who is obsessive about delivering superior client service and who has the expertise required to help you find and purchase the home that best fits the needs of you and your family, call 972 355-3511 or send me an e-mail. You'll be glad you did. |
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