 Buying a home is like jumping from an airplane. The more you do it, the more likely you are to get bruised. Just eavesdrop on any conversation where home buying is the topic. Before long, someone will tell a did-you-hear-the-one-about horror story related to a home-buying experience gone bad.
It helps to know whether such experiences are rare or commonplace, especially if you work for the Real Estate Center at Texas A&M University. That's one reason researchers surveyed 3,000 Texas homebuyers. And while the homebuyers provided some candid observations about the homebuying process, by and large they did not have much unfavorable to say about their real estate agent.
In fact, most of the 400 homebuyers responding to the survey gave their sales agents high marks, would use them again and would recommend them to their friends.
"Most of those surveyed (82 percent) used an agent to purchase their home," said Jack C. Harris, Center research economist who conducted the survey. "Of those using an agent, 64 percent had an agreement to be represented by a buyer's agent, and 8 percent did not know who the agent represented."
Eighty-five percent of those who used an agent said they would use the agent again or recommend the agent to their friends.
"Clearly, the incidence of buyers unhappy with their agents was rare among this group. However, the survey sample included only people who successfully completed the home-buying process. Those who were unsuccessful might have offered a different perspective."
Although some respondents harbored the notion that they could strike a better bargain if an agent had not been involved, that was not prominent among reasons given for not using an agent, Harris said. Most buyers who did not use an agent simply found the house before they encountered an agent. Many bought new homes. Some responded to a seller's yard sign. Others already knew the seller.
"Considering that current markets offer advantages to sellers," Harris said, "the small percentage of nonagent sales is remarkable."
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Limited evidence indicates that ethnic minority buyers use agents to a lesser degree than the population in general. Harris said it appears licensees have made progress in serving the Hispanic and Native-American communities but need to work harder to reach African-American homebuyers.
The homebuyers survey asked respondents to rate 11 key services commonly performed by agents for buyers. The most sought-after service was "searching the market." More than 91 percent of respondents considered this service important, and of them, 48.8 percent said their agent was "excellent" in that area. Less than 4 percent rated their agent as "poor" on this service.
"Preparing the contract" was a close second as the most-valued service. Ninety-one percent rated it important, and 52.2 percent said their agent was "excellent" in this area. "Keeping buyer informed," "showing homes," "negotiating" and "preparing for closing" were other services rated important by more than 80 percent of respondents.
"The services homebuyers value most are the ones agents have traditionally provided," Harris said. "Buyers expect their agent to do them because they are hard to accomplish without an agent. This includes touring homes and putting together an earnest money contract."
Agent services that received the lowest evaluations, Harris notes, are the ones buyers considered the least important.
Harris looked at those who said they would not use the agent again nor recommend the agent to friends and compared their surveys to those who were satisfied with their agent. The most significant differences were found in four services: preparing to close, showing homes, negotiating and keeping the buyer informed. The latter represented the greatest difference between satisfied and unhappy buyers.
Apparently communication is the key to a successful home-buying experience. Most buyers are happy with their sales agent, but the unhappiest buyers are those who feel their agent did not keep them well informed.
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