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Going Solo on House Hunting

Posted Monday, May 16, 2011

Looking for a house is a tough challenge. We buy houses that are perfect to us, with all the features we are looking for in an ideal home. However, more and more potential house buyers these days are doing independent actions in choosing their so called dream house that best suit their housing needs. Many are going solo.

It has become a tradition that house hunters seek professional consult to real estate agents because to reduce the hassles of going through so many transactions on their own. Real estate agents can present to these people properties ready to be sold with negotiable prices that can complement a buyer's budget. However, with the advent of technology, more and more people are making advantage of the great benefits of technology to mankind. The uses of human resource such as real estate agents in purchasing a house or other properties in that matter have greatly decreased over time, with a significant 50% drop a decade ago.

Human Resources have been replaced by high tech devices that are easy to reach by everyone. One example is the smartphone, which have greatly changed a lot of people's daily lives. These phones can do so many tasks, performing almost like a personal computer. These phones also have applications that can everyday tasks easier, faster, and more reliable. Buying a home has never been this easy with these smartphone applications. They can surely save you time and energy with a simple touch of your screens.

However, many experts suggest that rejecting a real estate agent's help when buying a house is a bad move since buyers do not pay the agents; sellers do. Also, there are so many things that agents can do that smart phone applications cannot. For example, an agent can recommend a bidding strategy. Since agents have access to historical price data for home sales in a specific area, the agent has the ability to do it. This can target comparable properties sold for lesser prices. So doing this alone can be a mistake as one expert suggest.

Few reasons we buy houses on our own already is that the price listings that only agents knew about before can now be easily found online. Also, agents can be very tricky to their clients, making them buy properties right away without waiting for any possible decrease in value of the chosen property. Since agents are on a commission-based pay, they do all efforts to have properties sold.

Like any other, there are always pros and cons. There are still some great real estate agents out there. Seeking their help may still be beneficial; we just need to find the best ones.