After our experience buying our home, I feel like I need to share it so other buyers know what our…read moreexperience was like. Our realtor was Eric.
This was genuinely one of the most disappointing experiences we have ever had with a realtor. Buying a home is supposed to be an exciting milestone, especially for a family, but throughout this process my husband and I constantly felt like we had to advocate for ourselves, stay on top of things ourselves, ask the questions ourselves, and make sure things were actually being handled.
We had done the majority of the work ourselves so his main involvement was handling the offer, contract, and transaction.
What made the experience worse was what happened once we were under contract. He advised $5,000 was a good amount to put down for earnest money even though the sellers were under contract 3 different times, been on the market a while and had no offers.
There were issues surrounding the condition of the home and what the seller had agreed to do, and instead of feeling like we had someone strongly advocating for us and protecting our interests, we often felt like WE were the ones having to research things, ask questions, push for answers, and make sure we weren't agreeing to something that wasn't what we had originally been promised.
For example, the roof became a major issue. We understood that the seller was supposed to replace the roof, and we had written communication indicating it was supposed to be a complete replacement rather than simply putting another layer over the existing roof. When that became an issue, it created an enormous amount of unnecessary stress. This is exactly the type of situation where you expect your realtor to be proactive, knowledgeable, and firmly advocating for you.
we never really felt like valued clients. We felt like another transaction and another commission.
We had specific terms that were agreed upon with the seller. When the seller later tried to avoid fulfilling some of those obligations, we expected our agent to advocate for us and hold the seller to the agreement. Instead, it felt like he was trying to convince us to compromise and accept the terms the seller no longer wanted to fulfill.
As our agent, we expected him to represent our best interests and fight for what had already been agreed upon--not pressure us to give up something simply to make the transaction easier to close
And I want to be clear about something -- our disappointment isn't because we expected gifts or anything extravagant. However, after everything we went through, and after purchasing a home that resulted in a significant commission of at least 14-15k, we didn't receive so much as a thank-you card or any meaningful gesture acknowledging our business. After an already frustrating experience, that really reinforced the feeling we had throughout the process: that once the transaction was complete and the commission was earned, we simply didn't matter anymore.
I understand that realtors get paid through commissions and this is their profession. But those commissions can amount to thousands of dollars from a single transaction. In exchange for that, I expect more than someone simply being present for the paperwork.
Looking back, I genuinely wish we had chosen someone else, possibly a smaller company or an independent realtor who would have appreciated our business and taken more personal responsibility for helping us through the process. For us, the experience felt extremely impersonal and transactional, and we walked away feeling like a paycheck rather than clients who had trusted someone to represent us during one of the biggest purchases we will ever make. Just figured I'd share on here too.
