When its time to inspect a home and sign a P&S agreement, I’ve noticed my buyers trying to figure out if they can get away without a real estate attorney. The answer is unequivocally NO! Its just too risky especially with Boston condos which come with a 3 inch stack of condo rules and regulations for the association you are buying into as well as a Master deed which is often over 100 pages.
Your real estate attorney reads all that and with their training can
spot some red flags that will cost you money down the line.
Without a real estate attorney you are wide open for problems. As an example, she will urge you to get title insurance which costs about $1500 and protects you if there are any legal problems somewhere in the past. Remember that many of these condos and single family homes have changed ownership dozens of times since 1880 to 1900 when most Back Bay, Beacon Hill, South End and Brookline buildings were constructed. If there is a problem somewhere down the line this Title insurance protects you from any claims on the property.
Whew! It would be a life warping event if you were to loose your home on a legal technicality. For instance, maybe someone in the 60’s sold the unit on false pretenses. If someone didn’t even have the right to sell the property they could come after you. Your Title insurance will protect you, your property and your money. $1500 well invested. Most people are open to doing things themselves to save money. Please believe me when I tell you this is not the place to pinch pennies.
Title insurance is just one example of sound advice from a real estate attorney. If you don’t have a lawyer it increases your chances of getting short changed in some manner. She actually READS that 3 inch stack looking for potential problems.
How do you find a good real estate attorney?
Most Buyers Agents like me keep a current list of qualified lawyers. This list contains information about the best we have worked with. These real estate attorneys know how to handle condos in the city as well as suburban single family homes.
Here is my current list of the best real estate
attorneys I have worked with.
Marisa S. Gregg, Esquire
Clark, Hunt & Embry
55 Cambridge Parkway
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02142
Tel: (617) 494-1920
Fax: (617) 494-1921
mgregg@chelaw.com http://www.chelaw.com/
Laura E. Days, Esq.
Israel, Van Kooy & Days, LLC
1318 Beacon Street, Suite 19
Brookline, MA 02446
Tel. (617) 277-3774
Fax. (617) 277-6520
ldays@socialaw.com
http://www.ivkdlaw.com/
Joseph Rubinstein
Marsh, Moriarty, Ontell & Darcey
18 Tremont Street, Boston, MA 02108
Tel.617- 742-1822
Fax 617- 720-2565
Mark A. McCue
McCue & Lee, LLP
535 Boylston Street
Boston, MA 02116-3720
Tel.617-236-0212
Fax 617-236-0797
Sandra C. Steele
Hoffman & Hoffman
44 School St, 6th Fl. (Suite 610)
Boston, MA 02108
Tel.617-523-0666
Fax 617-523-6502
For more information call me at 617-512-3443, Jeff Persons ABR
Buyers Be Represented, Not Sold!
More Reading about Boston Real Estate:
5 Clues That Your Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent
Can I Get Away Without Paying For a Real Estate Attorney?
Boston Real Estate buyers come to Boston from all over the world. The rules change almost everywhere you go. For instance in many European and Middle Eastern countries they often don’t use brokers at all, buyers preferring to work directly with the seller. Commissions for agents are as low as 1 percent while in Boston its 5 percent. They don’t seem to think much of their agents and I have to believe that the agents are sparsely educated.
Here in Boston our brokers are well educated and carefully licensed with continuing education and mandatory ethics classes. The dichotomy we have set up between Buyers Agents and Sellers Agents was set up to protect the consumer. Its a checks and balances kind of regulation that keeps both sides honest.
Here are some things to keep in mind when
working with a Buyers Agent:
First, if you are coming from out of town and want to get a Boston Buyers Agent to help you please remember that the Buyers Agent could spend a full work week helping you and not get paid a penny. Agents here don’t get paid unless there is a transaction. There are no salaries for real estate agents. So if after 2 weeks of having your buyers agent set up showings you change your mind, the agent just lost 2 weeks of his time and made no money.
As a Buyers Agent I have established some rules that buyers
must adhere to or I won’t even leave the office.
1. My first question to a buyer who has contacted me is “Is this a discretionary purchase?” Are they just thinking that it would be nice to have a place in Boston, especially if they have children in school here and plan to visit often? Or maybe they live in a rural area and think it would be nice to have a second home to visit the city. If the answer is yes, I get off the phone as soon as possible and continue looking for buyers who NEED TO BUY. You see, I’ve been doing this since 2002 and believe me buyers just don’t buy an expensive condo in an expensive city that they don’t NEED. By the time they figure that out and despite their good intentions, the Buyers Agent has lost several days or weeks. Then the Buyers Agent hears “Never mind, we will just use hotels when we visit”
2. Once its established you are really looking for a home and I start showing properties, I expect my buyers to show loyalty to our “gentleman’s agreement”. This simply means that if you go into an open house or a FSBO (for sale by owner) without me for some reason you sign in with my name so the Listing Agent knows you are being represented by me and they will refrain from trying to sell you some real estate. I don’t use Buyers Agency written agreements. I’m looking to my buyer to practice the Golden Rule. If my buyer is going to lie to me the piece of paper isn’t going to help anyone and who is going to sue? Not me.
3. Plan ahead. All showings in the city involve 2 brokers, the Listing Agent has to be there also. So if you have a list of MLS numbers you would like to see, give the agents 48 hours to set them up for you. Arrangements have to be made with tenants. Just setting up the showings for 15 properties will kill a good part of a Buyers Agent day on the phone.
Need to find the Best Exclusive Accredited Boston Buyers Agent?
Call me, Jeff Persons ABR at 617-512-3443
Buyers, Be Represented, Not Sold!
Further reading about Boston Buyers Agency:
Relocating To Boston
5 Worst Questions To Ask Your Buyers Agent
A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
5 Best Reasons To Have a Buyers Agent Represent You
5 Clues That Your Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
First Thing to Do When You Start Your Boston Real Estate Search, Get An Exclusive Accredited Buyers Agent
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney
How to Treat Your Boston Real Estate Buyers Agent? Use The Golden Rule
In case you didn’t have enough good reasons to seek out the services of an Accredited Buyers Agent, this secondhand smoking law suit in Boston makes the case for finding a really impeccable buyers agent. The buyers agent in this case didn’t lie, he just didn’t do his job, which left this poor woman in a condos upstairs from 2 smokers aggravating her asthma.
It started when this woman, Alyssa Burrage bought a condo in Boston’s South End. The woman has asthma and when she asked about the cigarette smoke smell the agent, who was supposed to be her buyers agent, told her all it needed was a paint job.
Alyssa Burrage
Would that be enough for you? Not enough of an explanation for me. I’ve been an Accredited Buyers Agent in Boston since 2002 and I would never stop my investigation with “It needs a paint job”. If the woman has asthma its up to her Buyers Agent/Buyers ADVOCATE to look into it further. The guy who was posing as her buyers agent, like all brokers in Boston, knows that cigarette smoke rises and races right through these old townhouses built in the late 19th century.
In my building which is exactly like the one in question, if someone lights a cigarette in the basement it rises right through the building and I can smell it on the fourth floor in about 5 minutes. This happens in all these old buildings. Thats the reason we made ours a non-smoking building. We put a clause into the condo documents.
Alyssa’s agent knew this as anyone practicing real estate
in Boston for a number of years would.
Its so obvious! As an Accredited Buyers Agent, I would have started my investigation downstairs where the smokers live right away. If Alyssa’s so called buyers agent was thinking about buying this unit for himself you can be sure that the downstairs smokers would have been dealt with or no sale.
Bottom line is even if someone calls himself your buyers agent, it doesn’t mean he really has your best interests at heart. In this case the pseudo-buyers agent just wanted to sell the woman some real estate.
Did he care about her asthma? In a word NO.
Not even enough to ask a couple of questions put to the smokers themselves? Not even enough to ask a few questions of the trustees? Not even enough to take a look at the condominium documents to see if there are any rules regarding smoking?
So why didn’t Alyssa’s buyers agent ask these questions?
The problem with all that objective investigation he could have done is that the answers might very well nix the sale which obviously was all this broker was interested in. I think he avoided lying but the negligence here is his lack of investigating the building and its occupants.
Sorry to report that a Suffolk County jury found in favor of the brokers. As it turns out after 4 years of this hassle Alyssa will receive no damages. She did get a small settlement from the smokers downstairs which is completely ridiculous because it wasn’t their fault. The fault lies with the buyers agent who sold the unit to Alyssa.
A lesson learned the hard way. Real Estate is always buyer beware around here but this case would never have happened if Alyssa had been diligent enough or lucky enough to meet a real Accredited Buyers Agent/Buyers Advocate who was sincerely interested in Alyssa, her asthma and the possibilities of her being happy in this property.
More reading on this subject:
5 Clues That Your Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise
A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney
First Thing to Do When You Start Your Boston Real Estate Search, Get An Exclusive Accredited Buyers Agent
Jeff Persons ABR 617-512-3443
This Secondhand Smoking Case in a Boston Condo is Another Good Reason to Have an Accredited Buyers Agent Represent You
Last year I wrote a post about the fear I noticed in the eyes of my foreign buyers when faced with making the decision to buy in the Boston area. “Frightened Looks on the Faces of My Foreign Buyers”. The fear was that they may buy high and then suffer as the Boston real estate market craters. This post still rings true but the fear is being replaced with “Oh darn, we missed the bottom” in Boston real estate.
Jeff Persons ABR
As a Boston Buyers Agent I discovered that the other real estate brokers were avoiding foreign buyers and “Out-Of-Towners”. They said “too much work” and they were right. A full 90 percent of “Out-Of-Towners” (foreign buyers included) who are looking for a second home to be near their children or because they like the city, will in fact NOT buy a property. The reason most Boston real estate agents won’t work with them is that by the time the buyers figure out they don’t want to buy an expensive condo in an expensive city that they don’t really NEED, the agents have been run around town like rented mules.
Then you hear the buyer say “Uh…Never mind”, we think its better to just get a hotel room when we want to visit.
I’m looking for buyers who “need to” buy a Boston home.
These are the people who really need me. Working with “Out-Of-Towners” is more work but I find it very satisfying to help folks who know little about Boston. On my end I have to be diligent enough to make sure that this is not a discretionary purchase. This means eliminating the parents who are visiting their children and have some time to kill and want to look like a hero to the family. Also there are the buyers from the suburbs who are thinking about a place in the city. Very very few buyers actually do buy a place in the city just for kicks. Its not just the money, its all the other stuff that goes with owning a property.
Most people have enough to do without paying condo fees, taxes and dealing with all the other details and miscellaneous tasks that go along with ownership.
Once I have established that these buyers REALLY want or need to purchase a property in the Boston area, then I start to teach what I know about all the neighborhoods inside RT95-128. This is time consuming but fulfilling as it may help them sidestep living in a rental until they figure out where they should be within the enormous area we call Boston area real estate.
If I was moving to Paris or Amsterdam I would pray to meet someone like me. I save buyers tons of time and money. These folks arrive in Boston and right away I can eliminate 50 percent of the neighborhoods and 50 percent of the MLS numbers that caught their eye on the web. Some want to be as close to Back Bay, Beacon Hill or the South End as they can afford, these are the best areas of downtown Boston. If they have young children, maybe they want a 3 bedroom in Lexington , Newton or Brookline as these have the best schools in the WORLD and a buyer can find a back yard too. Conversely, some parents with small children want to be downtown, the heck with the back yard, no one wants to mow the lawn. The suburbs are a boring hell-realm for some parents.
Excuse the hubris but I think most buyers believe that someone like me has to be too good to be true. Many also believe that they should go through the expense of renting for a year and moving twice so they can figure out the city for themselves. Well, maybe they should or maybe not. Who am I to say they shouldn’t? However, if you take the time to read the other posts on this site, and check out our Relocating To Boston page, I think you will begin to realize that you don’t have to rent for a year, you just need a good Buyers Agent/Buyers Advocate to help you navigate Boston real estate. Please feel free to contact me so we can discuss your search for a Boston home, 617-512-3443. Jeff Persons ABR.
Read related posts:
A Buyers Agent List of 5 Mission Critical Items to Check Before Buying a Condo
How to Save Time on Your Home Search by Closely Reading Public Information Sheets
First Thing to Do When You Start Your Boston Real Estate Search, Get An Exclusive Accredited Buyers Agent
How I Help “Out-Of-Towners” Find Their Spot Within Boston Real Estate and Boston Suburbs
1. He does not have his ABR (Accredited Buyers Representative) certification.
If he has bothered to get his certification it tells me he is serious about helping buyers.
2. She does not eagerly and enthusiastically show you EVERYTHING.
A good Buyers Agent will make sure you see all the viable properties in your price range and neighborhoods.
3. He starts to echo the Seller Agents justification for the price.
Hearing some acknowledgment of the negatives about the property is very reassuring. There are shortcomings for every property, if he glosses over those you know you have a Sellers Agent in a brilliant disguise.
4. She represents sellers.
An exclusive Buyers Agent may be hard to find in some locations but if you can find a Buyers Agent who NEVER represents sellers its a good indication that you have a real good money saving helper on your side.
5. He shows an unwillingness to walk away.
If he works the deal like a dog with a bone, asks you to pay more or makes “follow up” phone calls to you then you do not have a Buyers Agent, you have another person trying to sell you some real estate.
Here are some tips on finding a really helpful Buyers Agent and what you should expect from them.
1. Do Not Be Lazy!
I’m having fun here but the point is that I think many buyers do not seek out the services of a Buyers Agent because it looks like more work up front as well as an invasion of privacy.
2. Use Your Intuition.
Ask lots of questions and read their blog if they have one. Look into their philosophy because If you can find a Buyers Agent you trust it can save you 10s of thousands. This must be worth doing the same rigorous interview you would have with anyone handling responsibility like your new lawyer? Have the same reservations you might have when buying a used car.
3. Tell Him You Want To See ALL the sold units.
Dishonest Buyers Agents will hand pick sold statistics to reinforce the sellers ideas about the value of the property. Don’t settle for just the sold units that agree with the asking price.
Buyers Agency When Done Correctly is an Alignment With Truth.
A Buyers Agent who is REALLY practicing Buyers Agency will keep you from getting burned. He or she will pull several sets of sold property statistics. The first is done in preparation of the offer. After the offer is submitted another set coming from a different direction with the numbers can reinforce the offer, warn the buyer not to go higher or in some cases point out that the property is actually underpriced. (It happens but its always a mistake made by the people pulling the statistics.) Then when the counter offer comes in another set of metrics is pulled from yet another set of numbers. By this point a Buyers Agent worth his salt can nail down the fair market value of the property to within 3 percent. And more importantly YOU will know the value of the property. Hopefully you saw the inventory so you learned a lot about value there. Now in addition, thanks to your Buyers Agent, you have looked at 3 sets of averages statistically nailing down fair market value for you.
A good Buyers Agent comes back to the statistics again and again. The whole idea of practicing impeccable Buyers Agency is to take out personal opinion and conjecture. Numbers don’t lie and if the numbers are wrong the property is overpriced, period. You will find out if you have a real Buyers Agent if she starts to reconcile the sellers numbers to bring the deal together (read, when you pay more). Thus this kind of brilliantly disguised Listing Agent is along for the ride and the commission. She won’t pull another set of numbers to counter all the anecdotal hype that just streams out of the Listing Agents mouth. She is content to let the Listing Agent sell some real estate to her buyer client. Bad form, absolutely dishonest.
These commission rebates are another joke on the consumers. Mention cash rebates to consumers and its cash for clunkers all over again. People are suckers for a cash kickback especially in the middle of a deep recession. I would not be surprised if Massachusetts and other states eventually outlaw this practice because it plays on the buyers greed. Its so transparently manipulative and a little sad. There are all these buyers tripping over themselves to get a cash rebate while attention is taken away from the actual price being paid for the house (kind of like the $8000 tax break). In other words they are looking at the short term while a good Buyers Agent can get the price reduced. If I can get you the home for 500K instead of 530K, you just saved $180 per month for the next 30 years. That comes to $64,000 over the life of the loan. So the $64,000 question is :
How does that cash rebate look now?
I’m also not surprised to see this happening during a recession. Funny how desperation can get buyers to fall for that. Now people, work with me and think about it, not only are you are not going to use a real ABR Buyers Agent, you want to be rebated his commission and yet you expect to get a good deal from the seller? Are we living on the same planet? You may get the rebate but you will get taken to the cleaners for the property. Penny wise, and dollar totally foolish. What kind of magnanimous seller is going to give you a good deal when you are not even bothering to be represented?
In conclusion I would like to say that if there is a downside to having a Buyers Agent represent you, I can’t imagine what that might be. Here is a list of advantages once you have found a Buyers Agent. Just Google “Boston Buyers Agent” or “Boston Area Buyers Agent”
1. He will arrange and facilitate the actual property showings.
2. He will make the process of seeing the inventory easier for you.
With less running around to look at properties. See my article entitled ” Tips For Your Boston Home Search, Save Time and Frustration by Closely Reading MLS Listing Sheets” . If you have a list of 20 properties you would like to see, your Buyers Agent can help you cut that list in half without leaving the office. So right away your viewings are cut in half.
3. There is no charge for a Buyers Agents services.
He is paid entirely by the seller. So you get all that help seeing the properties, help with establishing fair market value as well as preparing the offer and negotiating price and terms. On top of all this saving time and money, this whole process can and should be a lot of fun!
Looking for the best Buyers Agent in the Boston and Boston Suburb areas? Call me today and we can discuss your search. Call 617-512-3443, ask for Jeff Persons
Read More About Buyers Agency:
Buying Boston Real Estate Without a Buyers Agent is Like Going Into Court Without An Attorney
5 Best Reasons To Have A Buyers Agent Represent You
5 Worst Questions to Ask Your Buyers Agent
5 Clues That Your Real Estate Buyers Agent is a Sellers Agent in a Brilliant Disguise.
