Rule #1 Realtors are NOT your friend. If you follow this one simple rule you’ll be better off for it.
Rule #2: Don’t pay more for a house than you’re willing to pay to keep that roof over your head. Anything more and you’re overpaying.
[Rule #1 Realtors are NOT your friend. If you follow this one simple rule you’ll be better off for it.]
Actually, as a Realtor, I can tell you that is generally (not always) untrue. A good realtor’s number one concern is liability, so that alone means not pushing people into crummy deals. But here’s what I find, is that buyers have a hard time taking rational advice, they tend to think they know better than their realtor. For example, I’ve done a dozen offers lately where the buyer underbid by 20% on absolute steals and then got mad at me when their offer was rejected (don’t ask me to explain this, it makes no sense).
So yeah, if you go with your cousin, or you go with the guy on the Bus stop sign, you aren’t likely to gain a friend, but a lot of us actually enjoy making our customers happy and frequently take a shave on commission to do so.