Do you really need a buyer's agent?

So you find a house that you absolutely love. You can't wait to put an offer in on it so you call the listing agent and you say, “Hey listening agent, I want to put an offer on this house. Maybe I can get a deal because I don't have an agent and the seller can therefore save on commission and not have to pay the buyer agent?”

And you know what that is quite possibly the worst idea I have ever heard.

So let's figure out why.

If we go back in time back to the 90s, when there was no such thing as co-operating representation and guess what? Things

were going wrong in these transactions. And what was happening was things were ending up in court and as they're ending up in court, the buyer was not winning. The seller was winning. Why? Because the listing agent works for the seller, not for the buyer.

It's kind of like saying, “Yeah you know what I'm gonna go to court but I'm not going to represent myself I'm going to see if I can make a deal work with the other lawyer.” Because that's usually ends up going well.

So imagine of the issues you could find. “I bought this house but you didn't tell me that there was a meth lab in the basement!” or, “I moved in and there were no appliances!”

Well guess what you never put in the appliances. You never said that you wanted a house that didn't have a meth lab.

The buyer agency rep was then created to represent the buyer to make sure that the buyers were on equal footing and were also winning, as opposed to the seller always winning.

If I'm a listing agent on a property and somebody comes to me and says, “Hey I want to buy this home but I don't have an agent maybe we could work something out,” first and foremost my gut reaction is … gross.

Number two, I’ve already had a discussion about this possible case with the seller and the conversation usually ends with, “…and we're gonna take their lunch money.” Because guess what? I work for the seller, not for you, so it's incredibly important that you get your own buyer agent so you have someone working for you. And chances are that if you did buy through a listing agent in the past,

sorry to tell you but it’s very possible that you got taken for a ride.

Now I know there's going to be other agents that are going to be watching this video and some of you may disagree with me and that's okay!

This is, after all, Haroon’s views.