Before you hire a Buyers agent, ask them this Hey, it's Steve with the Steven Brown Utah Real Estate team at Red Rock Realty. This is a follow-up video to the one I just did about interviewing a Listing agent and the questions everyone should ask before listing their home with anyone. Now on the Buyer's sides questions??  If someone from my family was in an area I couldn't represent them, these are the questions I would have them ask before I signed on with any agent. How do I know you have my best interest and not just selling me any home?   How will I know the home I like is worth the price offered?   How will I know its a sound, solid home?  How do I know you have my best interest and not just Selling me any home? You know, I can create a commission on any piece of junk home out there, But I will tell you, more than a few times  I have told my clients to walk away from a home they were falling in love with. Why?? If the home is surrounded by ghetto neighbors or an older dilapidated neighborhood.  Or homes built with sketchy construction materials. With a construction background, I look at homes with different eyes. If any of the issues I mentioned are present, it will not appreciate in value and I am looking down the road and the big picture when you think of upgrading or downsizing.    Believe me when I say there are not any commissions worth my Integrity. How will I know the home I like is worth the price offered?  First, we will check to see what the most recent homes in the area have sold for. 2nd we will get a home appraisal to make sure we don't overpay. and 3rd I can usually, find out about the seller's motivation to sell and negotiate a lower offer. How will I know it's a sound, solid home?  We will have a qualified Home Inspector do a thorough inspection from the roof and in the attic to under the sink and foundation with lots of details and pictures.  They can use thermal imaging to see if there is a leak in the wall or missing insulation. They can tell from the draw of power in an AC unit if it's on its last leg. PSI on a water heater and plumbing... Way more than I can cover here, but totally thorough. And to cap it off we will negotiate with the Seller to pay for a 1-year home warranty on any unforeseen items that neither Buyer nor Seller was aware of. In the end,  Buying is a much bigger process than I have covered here. But I will tell you there is NOTHING that is NOT my job. After you move in you may need referrals for different vendors and subs. I am here for the entire job. Just go to my website UtahHomesRus.com and read my reviews. And then call me.

Thinking of Selling? So you're thinking about selling your home!?  It could be for several reasons.  Your are up-sizing because of your family's growing  or your downsizing  or you're looking at becoming an empty nester.   Then there are Job transfers or financial hardships. Maybe that change of life,  where you need to move and be closer to family  or moving to an assisted living. Either way  I'm going to give you the general outline of what happens to sell and list your home. But first, Congratulations!  It's not always easy to pull the trigger to make that decision.  I have quite a few clients that have  “Dog chasing the car, syndrome”  They want to sell but once they caught the car (decide to sell)  they don't know what's next  or the fear of the unknown causes them to step back into their comfort zone.  The first step is to talk to a trusted agent.  Either way, you've researched real estate agents or you've got a referral from a friend and you called for the first contact,  the listing appointment. Your agent will inform you If it's a Sellers's or Buyer's market. The best strategy for the current market. At that appointment the agent can sit down with you he's going to ask you what your goals are and your situation.  Where you are moving and timeline.  Normally this is the time I like to take a few minutes and have you give me a tour of the home,  see things that are important to you.  What you think should be showcased as far as selling features  and then get the details and add them to an input form, the details about your home. The discussion kind of evolves to where we can talk about price strategy,  and marketing strategy.  Please watch my video,  “Pricing strategy” If all in agreement from there you and I will sign a contract which is called the  Exclusive Right to Sell contract. It gives me permission to put your house on the market (MLS)  and on social media  print flyers, hold Open Houses, and whatever else that is working the best for your area.  I will schedule a photographer to come and take high-quality photos  and sometimes drone video.  After that, we decide on a launch date for your listing to hit the MLS,  the multi-listing service so you can be prepared for prospective buyers to come to your home. I require a prospective buyer's agent to call for an appointment  and make sure that works with your schedule.  NO one should ever come to your home unannounced.  And no agent will take up your time with buyers who are not qualified to buy your home. Questions that my clients actually have is “Will you be with the people that come to see my home?”   No!  Just because the agent showing the home wants to have the freedomfor them to be able to speak freely with their clients about what they like and don't like.   They don't want the homeowner there or the Selling agent there.   Not to worry,  with the Realtor lockbox or Supra key,  it will send me a notification by text and email  that tells me of every agent who is entering your home and when. I want to keep this video focused on the process of selling,  but once we get a home into the contract I have another video called,  “You have an Offer, now what!?” That video will outline what's expected to the Seller  and what's expected of the Buyer with a detailed timeline for both parties  to execute a clean contract.  With a normal 30-40 day escrow, you will be settling on the sale of your home and heading for new adventures.

Cut rate Agents Hey, it's Steven Brown with red rock brokered by real with the Steven Brown Utah real estate team.  So in this video, we want to address the question, do cut-rate brokerages really save you money or the cut-rate agents to do it for a minimal or set fee. Crazy market. Crazy competitive offers. Homes going into contract in hours and above list and appraisal price. Practically can sell themselves........right!? It caused some homeowners to go into one of two camps. 1. I will sell myself, anyone can do it or 2. I will go with the cut-rate agency and sell for a minimum commission.   Let's talk about #1. Selling yourself.  Why does anyone want to sell themselves? Statistics from interviewing For sales by owners say the #1 reason they want to sell themselves is to save on the commission.   Now I won't rehearse all the reasons why that's, not a good idea here, but watch my previous video you shouldn't sell yourself.   The 2nd category homeowners go into to try to save money on the sale of their home is listing with the  "Help-U-Sells' or the cut-rate agent that does volume over quality and service.  And if you have paid attention, there are more cut-rate agents and brokerage that have left or gone out of business  than agents that have been in the business for years.  Zillow tried to undercut agents with I-buyer. Homie has a high turnover of agents. I could go on.    I would like to present a Paradigm shift.   So what is a paradigm shift?  Webster says it's a fundamental change in approach or underlying of assumptions.   It's looking at things from another angle through a different lens through a different filter  That completely changes the way we look at things from the past to how we understand them going forward.   So that being said, going through these 2 previous examples is not about the money you save.  It's about the money you didn't make.    It's not about the money you saved, it's about the money you didn't make. Let me explain:  You want to save on the commission so you hire a cut-rate agent.  He offers to do the Seller side ( his commission) at 1%   and offer the Buying agent 2.5%   The agent has you seeing dollar signs by saving 2.5%  Which equals $10,000 on a $400,000 home. Wow! That's great! RIght!?    Not even!! It's not about the money you saved, it's the money you didn't make.  Let me give you an example of one of my previous listings.  Clients approached me to sell their homes. Moving to Vegas and wanted $400k out of their home.  When I looked at the comps non would support that price.  In fact, the neighbor home, right next door with the same features, a cookie cutter home with the same sq footage  came on the market and no offers. Expired at $349,900. I told them to get to $400k we needed to start at $369,000.   They enlisted with my marketing strategy to flood all the social media,  lists on Washington County, Iron County, and Wasatch Front MLS.  We also marketed with a Drone video to frame the home in the beautiful landscape in our area.  And besides 20-30 Quality HD pictures, we also included a Matterport Virtual walk-thru model.  It creates a 3-D dollhouse model. This way, Buyers who do not like the flow of the home eliminate themselves from tying up the home that kick out the seller unnecessarily.  Also sent "Just Listed" postcards to 100 of their nearest neighbors, who usually know someone that wants to move to the area.  As it turned out, several of the agents were from Northern Utah that saw the listing on their local MLS.  Our strategy was to list on Wednesday and look at all offers through the weekend and decide on one Monday.  Long story short, we had a full price immediately. Could have taken the easy way out and accepted it.  The full price was above Appraisal and everyone feel good about it. Right!?  But you say Steve we received the full price offer in 20 hours. Here's another paradigm shift. You excluded the other 20 possible offers  By accepting the 1st offer. actually the path of least resistance and the least work. We continued to get over 50 showings. I lost track.  After we received several offers over $400k  I told everyone after that if you are not at least above $400k you won't be considered.  Then we received an offer for $419k. Waving appraisal and cash.  My clients were shopping for a home in Vegas and found one they wanted to make an offer on. They had to be in contract on the sale of their home.  We had not quite hit the end of the weekend and I told them we can accept this offer, but if another one came in higher we would have to pass.  They agreed and the next day another offer came in, $429k Cash with $50k non-refundable Earnest money upon acceptance.  $60k over list price.  $80k over anything else I saw for comps. But everyone was happy. Accept the nonaccepted Buyers.  So back to the paradigm shift. It's not what you saved... it's what you didn't make.  We did the hard work with over-the-top marketing and by reviewing over 20 offers.  Had we been the Cut-rate agent, I guess I would have saved over $1,500 in marketing and time. Accepting the first offer at full price for $369,000. In the magician's Sell, he would tell you he just saved you $9,225.  Light applause..  But going with a full-service agent we made them over $19,000 over what they wanted out of the home ($400k) with other offers passed on for $30k over what they were asking. ($429,000) heavy applause. A full service, do the hard work agent will make you money while on the other route you are supposed to think you saved money.  It is a paradigm shift to change your thinking this way.  I can't help if other agents' worth is only 1%. A good experience agent is worth it and will earn a full commission.  I know I am.  So when you're considering hiring an agent and you're doing the interview look for the one that will do all the work, he won't go the easy route by offering the lowest commission for himself and or the buyer's agent.  A lot of times that kind of agent their 1st marketing strategy to sell your house if you don't get any activity as to ask you to do a price reduction..  If you found this video useful please like and subscribe  and share and check out my other videos on price strategy, how to sell your house fast, and why you shouldn't try to sell it yourself.