I’ve never bought a house, am a total newbie to real-estate industry procedures/processes, and need some very basic information.
I’m a healthy, recently-retired single person. I want to buy a smallish-sized house–say 2-3 Bdrm, 1-ba, 700-1,000 SqFt–to live in during my retirement years. I’m low-income [social security] but with assets. I can pay a max of $160k in cash.
I want to live in NW USA–such as Spokane WA, Tri-Cities WA, Coeur d’Alene ID, Springfield OR, a few others. So can I contact real-estate professionals in these areas when I visit only for information-gathering? I won’t decide until I visit each area I’m considering, so won’t buy during a first visit.
In such a case, would a buyer’s agent be interested in talking to me? I’m serious about buying but only after comparing areas. Would a buyer’s agent see this as a chance to establish a good working relationship? Or would I be regarded as a “looky-loo” type, not serious?
Any newbie-specific tips, advice, etc appreciated–
Based on the info you provided, you shouldn’t have much trouble with agents giving you the cold shoulder. The prices in those markets match what you want to spend, more or less. You have a healthy amount of cash. It’s just a matter of finding a person.
We found our buyers agent at an open house. You can do the same. If you explain your situation and that you haven’t decided where to finalize your search, you’ll find out right away if they’ll work with you.
I am a commercial real estate agent, not residential, but in general residential real estate agents whether acting a buyer’s agents or not tend to be fairly local in their scope. I think you need to decide on an area before engaging an agent to look for you. Residential Agents scouring areas outside their geographic range of expertise tend not to do great jobs as they are not plugged into the information being traded between local agents about available deals beyond the MLS listing parameters.
I have zero knowledge re what houses go for in the Spokane area, but I’d guess at $120-$160 sq ft you’re probably in the lower end ballpark of affordability for a basic small house. The only caveat is that (at least here on the eastern shore of MD) small stand alone houses tend to be clustered in the lower end of the neighborhood quality range. Older, vulnerable people and poorer neighborhoods do not tend to mix well as they are often targets for predators. If you are willing to live further out from the urban areas you may get a better deal but that generally means a bigger yard and and more exterior maintenance.
Have you considered a condo in a retirement community?
I read the OP as saying he/she would engage with different agents in different areas.
I don’t see any problem with this. Be honest and tell them you are looking at different areas and hope they can help “sell” you on their area. Real estate agents are usually so hungry for clients that you have to beat them away with sticks rather than worrying about whether they will take you on or not.
Not the better agents. All an agent has to sell is their time. If someone says “I want you to do these searches for me” because I “might” come to your area they are a fairly low priority prospect. You can probably have an agent do some MLS searches for you on that premise and email them to you, but you can do most searches yourself these days via the net.
Most busy agents will try to politely avoid carting someone around to look at houses who has not even decided that they are coming to the area.
The thing about the op’s wish list that jumps out at me:
Square footage.
If you really want something that small, you will be looking at condo/townhouse (yes, one is a form of ownership, the other a style of building, but…) or older construction.
SFD’s have been growing since 1960 - this mega-tract development dates to 1979 - there are two classes of houses - 1300 ft[sup]2[/sup] and below, on smaller lots and 1400ft[sup]2[/sup] & up on larger lots.
If you want 100+ amp electric service, dishwasher/disposal, 2-car garage, etc, you may have a problem - by the time those became common, houses were getting bigger.
If you want newer construction AND small footage, see Open Houses.
Open Houses are not about selling that house - they are about meeting new clients for the agents.
Tell them what you want - which is more important - age, size, type/ownership style.
If you want sole ownership (not condo), how about HOA?
For some (like me) HOA is automatically excluded.
If you really want to limit the size, say so at first meeting - there are agents who specialize in certain tracts where such houses are common.
Why not do your own research on houses in your price range in those locations on-line before you visit? Then you can send the prospective agents a list of homes that you find interesting, they can set up appointments and maybe add a few others to the list to show you.
Agents will be happy to speak with you, but most won’t do any work or show you places until you show them a mortgage preapproval at least. Some may even make you sign an exclusive representation agreement.
There are SO MANY nice hidden places to live in the Pacific Northwest…
…I would recommend putting a lot of your stuff in storage, then renting apartments for a few months in each location you are interested in living. Then drive around that area and see all the neat places you could live!
Note: North and South of Springfield, Oregon are some really nice areas where the housing prices drop dramatically from the Portland/Eugene/Seattle high prices.
And some relatively inexpensive housing on the Pacific Coast for Oregon/Washington. But drive around those areas on 3 day weekends before deciding to move there. Everyone from the big cities will decide to visit on the same day and traffic is at a standstill in some areas.
Learn about these things in advance before buying and be patient.
birchtree
I would recommend picking one of those cities first. Visit them and decide which one seems most like what you want. It can be a nice road trip.
25 years ago my wife and I did just that. We had a list of three things that we wanted from an area and drove from the east to west coasts and all around in between (pre-internet). We ended up in near Coeur d’Alene Idaho and have been very happy.
Once you have found the town you like, you can do ALL of your preliminary real estate shopping on the internet. Easily.
If you have questions about Cd’A or Spokane feel free to PM me.
The “better agents” typically have assistants who are coming up in the ranks and who can help out just fine. If the OP has the agent do an MLS search and then says he or she is coming into town and would like to see maybe 3 or 4 homes, I see no reason why the agent won’t help with that.
The “super” agent pays and controls their assistants and is very attuned to how they spend their time and how to best deploy them. The assistants will be just as wary of the super agent of someone bopping into town wanting a property tour on the whimsical “maybe” of settling there. The time to arrange and then show several homes takes at least half or more of a typical useful workday for an agent.
Based on past history this type of geographically wandering, semi-motivated, tire kicking client is usually a poor bet with respect to agent time investment. Maybe you can find someone willing to devote the time to show you around based on the OP premise but most decent agents and their assistants are not going to be champing at the bit for this type of client.
The OP lists four places and mentions ‘several more’, so even if he goes through with the plan there’s only a 1 in 6 chance that he’ll chose their area. The fact that the plan strikes me as weird and probably would an agent too is another mark against this; the idea of deciding that you want to move to a vague area of the country that you aren’t in now for the rest of your life is a bit unusual in my book. It just seems incredibly likely that the plan is going to change, so no point in wasting a day of an agent’s time showing houses.
Professional real estate agent here. However, in the USA, all agents are licensed by the state, and there are significant differences in rules and regulations; whatever I say might not apply elsewhere.
You certainly can contact agents for free information, but please remember that most agents get paid nothing to answer questions or phones and distribute literature. Some have to pay for their own postage, internet, computer use, copier, etc., so please don’t expect any agent to devote much time to you unless you are a serious buyer. And if you haven’t yet decided where you want to live, you aren’t a serious buyer. Be honest with them if you want them to be honest with you.
States differ – did I say that before? – but in my state, an agent can act for the buyer or the seller, or both, and all parties must be notified of the broker’s status during a transaction.
It all depends on what document you sign. If someone walks into my office as a buyer and wants me to represent him as such, I hand him a disclosure form that defines what my legal duties are to him and what it will cost, if anything.
Wisconsin law requires a disclosure form (for buyer or seller) to be signed* prior to the beginning of negotiation*, usually defined as writing a purchase contract, but you can do it earlier.
As far as cost to a buyer, fees are negotiable, and if I told you that “$N is standard”, I would be violating anti-trust law. I can tell you my policy and my company’s policies, although there may be room for negotiation (if you are looking to buy a $2 mil property, I’ll cut you a little discount, you bet!).
As a buyer’s agent, I write the contract saying that the buyer pays nothing in commission if the property bought is already listed in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), because an MLS listing automatically says the listing broker has promised to share his commission. Other circumstances, like FSBO (For Sale By Owner) properties are handled differently.
Here’s a tip. Go to one of the areas you are interested in and open a dialogue with an agent in that area. Tell him frankly that you aren’t sure that his area will be the one, but if you decide to look outside his local area, you will ask him for a referral before proceeding.
He will be much more likely to want to work with you, since if you ask him for a referral, he will give you another agent’s name, and if you buy a property thru Agent #2, Agent #1 will receive a “referral fee”. This is typically 25% of the buying side of a closed transaction. In effect, it’s kind of a commission insurance – he will get paid one of two ways. AFAIK, this will cost you nothing – it’s a pretty good deal for a buyer.
My house was built in 1953, and has all those things. Most older houses have been renovated at least once if not several times and new features added. Any house which has not been updated for 50 years is one I think the OP might want to avoid.
You haven’t mentioned if you have looked on-line at listings. You’ll probably get an excellent idea of what is available in each of these places and if it will meet your needs. I haven’t bought a house since the web was just starting, but if we are interested in a house for sale near our house we can usually get lots of info on line.
I’d suspect you’d get more attention from an agent if you showed up (with an appointment) as opposed to emailing requesting a search. If you do the research I mentioned you’ll have cut the possibilities down a lot, so you can ask to see a few houses you pick.
BTW, I’ve just retired and when we move back to our old town in NJ in a few years we’re definitely going with a townhouse. We have a five bedroom house now - the office space is great but it is way too big. Plus we’d be able to travel without worrying about maintenance.
