Do I Need A Realtor To Buy a New House in Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky?
Do I need a realtor to buy a new home? That’s what we’re going to talk about in this video.
All right. hey everyone, welcome back. This is Eric Sztanyo with Keller Williams Realty and teamsztanyo.com, where we are helping families find their way home.
Today we are asking the question, do I need to use a realtor if I’m looking to buy a new construction home or if I’m building a new house? It’s a great question. We get that a lot as a buyer’s agent here who also specializes in new construction in the Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky areas. It’s a great question and we want to answer that for you.
Technically … the Answer is No, But …
Let’s get into it. I mean, the simple answer is no. Maybe I should say the technical answer is no. You don’t actually need a buyer’s agent to go with you to buy a new house, but the question would be, why don’t you want one? There’s a few reasons why you definitely want to consider that.
A Buyer’s Agent is FREE for You, the Builder Pays the Commission
There are a lot of reasons why you’re going to want a buyer’s agent to represent you. Here’s just a few of those advantages. First of all, it’s free. Whether you’re buying a new construction home or a resale home, when you are using a buyer’s agent to represent you in your best interest as a buyer, you’re not paying the commission. In this case with a new construction home, it’s the builder who’s paying the commission for the buyer’s agent.
That’s one of the main reasons why a lot of people think, well maybe I could get a lower price on the home, or if I don’t use an agent, maybe I can get a discount. It’s not true. With with builders and the way they set up their pro forma and with the way they run their numbers, they’ve got the commission already baked into their marketing budget, both to pay their own agent and to pay the buyer’s agent.
The first thing you need to know is it’s not going to cost you anything to use a buyer’s agent. It’s only advantageous for you to use one because the builder is already paying for it.
An Agent on Your Side of the Table
Now that you know that the cost is off the table for you for the commission, the second reason why you’re going to want a buyer’s agent is they are going to be representing your best interests.
Now, if you just walked into a home community in Cincinnati, like Ryan Homes, or Drees, or Fischer Homes, you’re going to be talking with the builder’s agent at the model home or within the neighborhood there. They’re going to be really friendly and they’re going to tell you everything you need to know about the homes, but you need to understand that they are not representing you and the transaction. Their job is to represent the builder and get the home sold.
The other reason why you going to want to use a buyer’s agent is when you’re going into the transaction to buy a new construction home or to build, you want someone who’s advocating for your best interests and working on your behalf. That’s what the buyer’s agent is going to be for you.
Get Expertise from a Professional – Contract Translation, When to Buy & Incentives
It’s free to you. You’re going to have an agent that’s representing you. The third reason is you’re going to want expertise from a professional. Now I know it’s 2019, when we’re recording this and the internet exists and you can Google all day long about how to get the best deal, or buy the best home, or get the best location. The truth is you’re going to want an experienced professional in your local Cincinnati market who’s worked with new construction home to work for your behalf.
There’s several reasons why this can be helpful for you. First of all, when you’re going into a contract for a new construction home, it’s a little bit different than the contract when you’re doing a resale home. It’s a lot longer. There’s a lot more attorney speak. You’re going to be wanting to work with a professional who’s familiar with those contracts and can help translate those clauses or those paragraphs of the fine details so you’re not just overwhelmed by the builder’s purchase contract.
Another way the expertise from a buyer’s agent can help you with new construction is determining when to buy. It’s really interesting with new construction, it’s almost similar to car sales deals, where there’s a quotas to hit at certain points during the year, and when you have inventory built up for a builder, every day that that inventory is on the books, it’s costing them money. There’s a time value of money and it’s worth more to them to sell it for the same price today as it is 15 or 30 or 45 days in the future.
If you couple that along with when you think through the end of quarters or even the end of year, a good agent’s going to help you realize, you know what, if you could buy at the end of a quarter, you might be able to get some better incentives from a builder. If you could buy at the end of December, where there’s some inventory on a builder’s, within a builder that they haven’t sold yet, there’s not a lot of people out there looking to buy new homes around Christmas time or new years, but that could be a great time for you.
These are just little tips that a buyers agent might help you out with, in terms of if you have some time and some flexibility of building a new home, when you might be able to get a great deal.
Let’s talk about that for just a minute because when I say great deal, what does that mean with new construction? Typically it’s not going to mean a lowering of price. Builders do not want to lower the price of their homes. Why? Because if they drop the price on one home and that comp hits the market, it sets a precedent for all the future homes they’re trying to sell in that development or in that neighborhood. Getting a good deal with new construction is not necessarily a lower price.
What it could mean is getting different incentives from the builder. That could mean getting upgrades that aren’t in the base standard price. That could mean maybe the builder paying for your closing costs. When you’re working with an agent, they’re the ones who are going to be able to kind of help negotiate on your behalf and ask for those different incentives to help you get a better deal on your new home.
Why Would You NOT Use a Realtor to Buy a New Home?
Do you need a realtor to buy a new house in Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky? No, but hopefully after watching this video, you guys have discovered a few reasons why you might want to consider one.
If you’re looking in Cincinnati or Northern Kentucky, there’s a lot of new homes built, kind of the suburbs around the 275 loops up in Maineville, Loveland, Mason in Cincinnati, and then maybe down in like Union, Hebron, but there’s also custom builders who are working more within the city.
If you have a lot of land, closer to downtown, inner radius of Cincinnati, we can help too, but if you want to work with an agent, give us a call at Team Sztanyo, we’d love to help you out. Help you find that perfect dream home and that new construction home for you.
Thanks so much for watching guys. We’ll see you next time.