One of the most challenging parts of the process of buying a home is finding an appropriate partner to work with. Real estate agents are a dime a dozen, of course, but those who commit to truly serving their clients’ best interests are much harder to find. For many people, settling upon a realtor is one of the most important decisions they will make as they go forward, so it is not one to be taken lightly.
There are good ways of sorting through the bewildering array of options that the market seems to present. The Real Estate Assistance League, for example, is an organization that was created to address this very issue, and many who have made use of it have found it to be helpful. Likewise, there are other options that can be similarly useful to those who would otherwise find it troublesome to secure a truly effective agent.
The way groups of this sort work is that they collect and vet the details of a number of buying a home, seeking to find those who most distinguish themselves through their services to their clients over time. One way that some realtors stand out is by securing especially impressive after-sale evaluations, particularly from clients who have lived for a year or more in the homes that they purchased.
Testimonials of this kind are especially valuable because they provide perspective that can be difficult to come by in the short term. Thrilled with having finally purchased a new home, many buyers leave reviews early on that do not reflect how they will feel after more time has passed.
Despite the value in reviews of this kind, they are relatively hard to find. It is much easier to track down and solicit opinions from buyers soon after a sale than to follow up a year or two later, so most effort is of the former sort, in practice.
Groups that want to single out the most helpful real estate agents of all, though, find that this long-term approach makes a lot more sense. By surveying buyers several times over a period of a number of years, they get a much more complete picture of what the experience of working with a particular agent was actually like.
Buyers often do well, then, to look for help from organizations that go this extra mile. That can make a big difference when it comes to finding and working with an agent who will truly serve a given buyer’s needs.
when to buy a home 