Taking a Poll About Buying a House

I don't use Realtor.com, but I do use Trulia and Redfin. Usually by the time my agent's automated MLS search sends me listings, I've already seen them myself on Redfin.

ETA: Momof1, that is EXACTLY how I feel about it too! I would like to be a buyer's agent and actually learn about the houses in my market so I can be more useful to find a house FOR my clients, not to just act as a gatekeeper.

No! We do 90% of the work!!!! I love to look and I'm not going to wait for my realtor to find my perfect house:)

I always jump on the local realtor sites, and plug in my city or subdivision that I'm interested in. I don't understand relying on a realtor solely for what they know. I mean, maybe they don't drive in the area you are interested in, and sometimes MLS may not be updated with a house you are interested in, that may have a new sign in the yard.

When we bought this house in 1997 - we used a Realtor as we were new to the area.

I'm PASSIVELY looking for a new house....I've been talking with a Realtor who knows and understands the house will be my DREAM home, so she shows me stuff that might be close to what I'm looking for.

I look on-line as well. But when we actually go to sign on the dotted line, we'll do it with a Realtor.

My husband surprised me the other day and said he's looking at a job in Colorado. So that would be a great move for me/us!!

I do most of the work. When we moved back to Houston, I knew exactly what area and school district I wanted. That limited the neighborhoods. I didn't care, I wanted this district and I wanted a certain high school.

My realtor wasn't real happy with that because she felt like I was limiting our choices. Yep, sure was! I wanted what was best for our kids and we got that.

I love to look at houses!!! =)

I look all over (not just at any one website).. including the real estate books that are free everywhere...

I like to know what I can get for my money. And see what is out there. Whether it would come up in MY listing database or not.

Honestly, I've never really found what I was searching for... we built both times. Once with an agent brokering the deal with the builder, and once without.
-and looking at houses (in books and online) is fun! I am not in the market at all... and I still grab those books and look sometimes. I just like looking. :)

We found our own house, called the listing agency, had them show it to us, and then we ended up buying it. It was a crappy house which had been on the market for two years, but was on a great street in a great neighborhood. The listing agency sent one of their young guys out to show it to us fully expecting nothing out of it. What a great bonus for him when he ended up acting as our buying agent and getting the commission on the sale.

We knew *exactly* what we were looking for in a house: fixer upper in the best location. We waited until we were in position to start looking and ended up with a phenomenal deal. Now it's all remodeled and it's truly my dream home.

I don't need a realtor to help me FIND my home, but I do need them to organize all the stuff that comes after our offer is submitted and before the closing documents are signed. There's way more to buying a house than simply finding the house. And yeah, realtor.com, zillow.com, trulia.com are all very useful.

I use realtor.com all the time (even when I am not ready to buy). I then go to Zillow or Trulia and see if I can find out more about a house that interests me.

Even though some realtors (Keller Williams and Coldwell Banker for example) put you on the auto email, they are usually 24 hours behind realtor.com. My 'old' realtor insisted they are updated every 15 minutes. Well because I looked at realtor.com I was able to see a house that was in escrow become active and made the offer that same day (a house i was eyeballing and originally missed out on). The auto email came after my offer was made.

My recent experience with Realtors has led me to the conclusion that I want to go into real estate. I absolutely agree that a buyer needs to do some homework and decide everything that you want in a home and neighborhood. I honestly haven't been too impressed with the realtors I have seen and quite frankly it makes me yern for more bang for the buck. I'm not saying they all are the same, but it just seems like they don't do enough or listen to the buyer. Perhaps it's because it's so cut throat and all commission based, but it just seems like when you leave things up to just your realtor, things get missed. Buying a home is almost as intimate as picking a spouse! I say do everything you can that helps you find "the one"!!

We use zillow or realtor - we only contact an agent when we are serious about it. And we contact the listing agent first, and then if we like what we see, we bring in a buyers agent.

We actually have a brokerage license and an MLS membership, so when we were looking for a house, we searched the MLS on our own. But if we had been working with a realtor, we would have had her set up an MLS portal for us, sure. I think for people who are easily overwhelmed, or unable to stick to their budget/loan amount, maybe it's a good idea just to look at what the realtor gives you - but a lot of people aren't very good at communicating with their realtor, either, so in my opinion, looking through the listings on your own is mission-critical.

Whenever house hunting we've always looked at realtor.com and some other sites. If something sparked interest we would drive over to take a look. If we liked what we saw, then we'd call the realtor to take a look inside.

I like realtor.com better. Although Zillow often has more pictures.

Don't just rely on your realtor. She may steer you to buy from her office only. You need to do your own work, too. Had I not said, "show me that house" I wouldn't be living in the house I live in today!

We did a lot of our own research when we were looking for our first home. The realtor supplemented us with alternatives and places we had not considered.

We built the next 2 homes from scratch and did not need a realtor for those transactions.

We always looked online. My realtor told me that, in the end, most people do find their OWN house!

i was a little annoyed that our realtor never even thought about this place for us. when it came up on her MLS she thought 'oh, that area is too wooded for them' and ruled it out. it was someone who lived nearby who let us know it was for sale and might work.
so our realtor got a commission even though she didn't find the place. to be fair, though, she did do a lot of work on our behalf so i don't begrudge her.
but to answer your question, yes, we did a LOT of looking on our own. and that was before the intrawebz were everywhere!
khairete
S.

Our realtor is literally just unlocking doors! Worthless. I'm looking to buy from for sale buy owner. It's time to fire realtors. She literally does nothing. I'm also thinking of listing buy owner. I get that there is a need for a mortgage guy, lawyers, inspectors, etc. But people to show me a house?

My first realtor wasn't even going to show us our current house! Neither realtor I've used has found me a house. I look myself, and it's the homes I take myself to that I like. Again, the realtor has keys, and may be useful for negotiating, but I really think they all work together screwing us out of money. I mean, they are all co-workers. My realtor knows everyone.they want a sale at a price that works for them, not us.

Yes, I'm a skeptic. I homebirth too. Experts need to go in most things. It's a silly part of our ideology that was bring in during the progressive era to further stratify society.

I use some kind of internet search service. I would not rely only on a realtor to pick out houses.

I check out realtor.com and find locations I want to see houses in. I scout communities on my own before checking out houses with the realtor. Especially in such a big market as DFW metroplex, there are so many different neighborhoods and specific things to consider when buying a home.

When I last bought a house we did not yet have internet. I do sometimes look around on realtor.ca out of curiosity, and I imagine if I were in the market for a house now I would start there.

Trulia is our preferred site. We have never soley relied on our realtor. The last two times we were buying a house probably 70% of the house we saw were ones we found online.
That wasn't because I doubted their ability, we just enjoyed looking online ourselves and several times found ones the realtor never saw.

It's been a while since we went looking for a house. We hooked up with a relator because we were also selling our townhome. We did a little of both having them show us homes and us going online to see what was out there. At first the realtors just couldn't get a grasp on what type of home we wanted so it was very frustrating. Once we got them on the same page though we finally found our home. It wasn't perfect, even at the time. It was the best we could afford though at the time. We figured we wouldn't be in it long. Joke was on us, we've been in this house for a bit over 11 years now. Thank you housing disaster!
Next time around we'll do a lot more on our own to save us from the headaches we ran into with the realtor. We won't completely remove them from the equation though.

I would do both. realtor.com would give you good information, homes to compare your wish list with, give you a realistic picture as to what you could afford etc. Then when you go out with your realtor, you are better equipped to make an educated purchase.

When buying our first house, we would call the realtor listing the house we wanted to see and set up an appointment to view the house. We ended up buying from a couple that was FSBO so there weren't any realtors involved. For our sencond house, we built new construction and didn't use a realtor.
We did list our first house with a realtor in order to sell it.

We looked at everything we could find everywhere we could find it.
Not only our realtors info that he sent us but also several relator sites as well s the one you mentioned.
Though there were similar finds across sites sometimes there were differences and some houses appeared on one site but not another.
I loved looking at 3D tours whenever I could find them.
A few houses we looked at looked more impressive online than they did in person.
Our realtor is a friend of ours and he said many sites update info in some strange ways where new info sometimes doesn't make it in and old info sometimes doesn't make it out (after it's been sold and taken off the market).
We bought our current house in 2007 and 6 MONTHS LATER we still had people coming around thinking our house was for sale.

We definitely did both. We looked a lot on redfin, too. I don't rely only on the realtor because we might find something on our own that we like, but that didn't meet the main criteria we asked them to search for. Plus, I would always wonder if there were less expensive places that they just weren't showing us so they could make more money.

I prefer to do my own searches along with looking at what the realtor sends because you get a broader sense of what's available.
I like Zillow.com and Ebby Halliday's website. They seem the easiest to search.

Mamasource strikes again! What I mean is that you always receive answers to questions you didn't ask, and their is no shortage of strong opinions. I am not a Realtor, but I am in the real estate business. I believe that Realtors are very aware that there buyers are shopping on the internet in advance. Finding a house used to be a very integral part of what Realtors do, but that process is being replaced by the internet. Realtors remain necessary as the gatekeepers to the interior, as no home should be left open to the general public to peruse (and plunder, pillage and vandalize). Where a Realtor earns their commission is in the writing of the contract, price vs. value advice, negotiations and then overseeing the process through closing. Whether 3% of the sale price is worth it depends on the individual. But it is not fair to throw all Realtors under the bus because somebody had a bad experience.

Ok, I'm going to respond because I am a realtor. And like in any business, all realtors are not created equal. I apologize to all of you that have had a bad experience. Hopefully when you are ready again you will have a better one. As for looking on your own on the internet, all of my clients have done it prior to me working with them. And they continued to look and drive around even with me working with them and sending them daily updates on what just came on the market. Do you buy a car without doing internet research first? Same with homes. So much is at our fingertips now with the internet. Use trulia.com, realtor.com or redfin.com, do not use Zillow it is not accurate at all.

There is a lot of behind the scene work that a realtor does. For example, when I list a home, I don't just put a sign in the yard and walk away, one of the things I do that most agents do not, is go on MLS and see if another realtor has a client looking for what I am selling, and then I contact that realtor. Plus all the paperwork that goes into selling/buying a home. And making it seem as seamless as possible for the clients. Most realtors want happy clients that love their home.

Trust me there is a lot a good realtor does to make the clients happy. I hope anyone that is looking works with a great realtor. Feel free to PM if you have any questions I can help you with.

Once again, so sorry for those of you that did not have a good experience!

I have always used realtor.com or trulia.com, sometimes Zillow.com.
I have found that realtor.com keeps their info up to date, it will tell you if the home has an offer or is under contract. Zillow is nice to see how many days it has been on the market.

I would not rely on the realtor alone since this will be your home. I tend to find what I like and get the realtor to give me more info that is not listed on the sites.

After reading some of the other comments you should interview different realtors to find someone that you feel most comfortable with. They all work a little differently. I found this out when I purchased my first home, she only showed me the property and then I never saw her again. I figured out the process on my own and she didn't even go to closing, she sent an admin from the office.
Also never sign anything until you are sure you are ready to buy.

I don't know what others do, but we were all over the internet looking for homes for months before we got a realtor involved! You know better what you want than they do, and with everything available online now, it is such a luxury! Our realtor took us to see a few homes that she thought we would like, but we ultimately found what we liked and wanted to see also. We actually are living in a home that my husband found by accident online, we were pretty sure we didn't want to live in Greenville, and my husband accidently checked the block for Greenville and wow, imagine that...we never would have found such a nice place if not by accident! In short, I wouldn't dream of letting the realtor handle it all...way too exciting to see what is out there on your own!

We just bought a house this month. I searched these real estate apps for months and months on my own just because it's kind of like window shopping. But when it was time to get serious my realtor was awesome about the whole process. She completely focused on my needs as her client and helped point out things I hadn't considered and completely handled all the paperwork and back end stress for me. THAT is where realtors earn their money. It also seems like people here are not taking into consideration that realtors have more than just one client.