What are reasonable expectations for a real estate agent?

Yes, I'd expect help reviewing/interpreting the disclosures, though some agents do just pass them on. I would only expect a list of suggested contractors--I'd expect to do my own appointment scheduling, etc. Offer price should be determined by comps (coupled with your own comfort level--you may be okay going over comps, or you may want to stay under them even if it means losing out on the house). I would also caution that unsuccessful offers are unfortunately part of the game in a sellers' market, so may or may not have much to do with your agent (unless you are writing offers below what you're willing to pay based on the agent's guidance and then not getting homes--in which case yes, you need a more aggressive agent!) That said, if you don't have a good relationship after a year of this, it might be time to move on regardless. Good luck!

I can't recommend Stephen Bloom and his partner Robin Donovan enough. We have worked with them for six years, as buyers and sellers, 8 times now. I think we have lost out on 1 bid, maybe, and been successful in four purchases, and four sales. They are excellent. I'll warn you, however, that we do almost everything they say, which I think is the trick once you find someone you trust. They suggest and oftentimes will book/coordinate contractors, thoroughly review disclosures, help with appointments, and suggest aggressive and less aggressive offer prices, to name only a few details. They are kind, strategic, and incredible. 

In our limited experience (we bid on two homes and won our second bid in montclair) our agent did do a bunch of things that made us really happy:

1. She reviewed all the disclosures, was able to benchmark whether - relative to other homes- the disclosures were more clean or had some big issues, and was also able to ballpark an estimate for how much the work would cost that was recommended in the inspections
2. Provided names of contractors and would have been on site had we chosen to do an independent inspection (in our case, the person she would have recommended actually also conducted the sellers inspection). Once we'd won our bid, she also put us directly in touch with her preferred contractors and sent them the portions of the inspections that were relevant to the work (electrician/plumber etc.) so that they could provide us with bids for the work
3. On the bid, provided a list of comps and some general guidance on what her "gut" was telling her about how much the home would go for - obviously, no realtor is going to say "this is what you should bid" but when we pushed her, we often were able to get a more clear number as a ballpark and then could make our own decision on what felt comfortable
4. When we were closing, was at the Title company with us to review paperwork and flag things that were important for us to research/remember

If yours isn't doing these things, it might make sense to find another!

Hello, 

My husband and I just got our offer accepted and we are going through the process of closing. We are new to the Bay Area and we are new to home buying so coming in was all a learning experience for us. Thankfully we were connected with an agent that really took care of our best interest and was quite sharp. 

Since the get go, he sat down with us at our first home tour with him to explain to us all of the jargon that comes with looking for a home and the different processes, basically getting us ready to see the complete process. We asked him many questions and he answered them all with additional guidance and perspective. Once we found a home that we wanted to make an offer for, he requested the disclosures, we reviewed them carefully and made an offer. During each of our home visits, he was there at least 10-15 minutes earlier than us to check out the neighborhood and to meet with the listing agent to build a relationship and ask questions about the house. As we arrived, he already knew what disclosures were available, he had already scoped out the house to find any issues and even before the visit he had already pulled comps. Once we let him know that we were interested in a home, he would call the listing agent immediately to let him know to expect an offer. As we submitted the offer (contingent upon our own inspections--as he recommended), we got the offer accepted and went in within the next day with an inspector that he had recommended and even called for us. He met my husband at the home and the inspector went through the house once and then a second time explaining to my husband his findings and recommendations. This was very helpful because we not only want to know what are the issues, but what we can do to maintain our new home. When closing a home, there are many moving pieces and one needs to act quickly. Our agent upon notice of the accepted offer, moved his team and worked with our lender to get all of the required information needed as soon as possible. Another thing that I think is key has to do with your lender--how soon are they able to close? I think this was a big thing in our case as our lender is able to close in 21 days vs. our competing offers which asked for 30+ days. Again, our agent was instrumental with this information as he connected with our lender as soon as we met him so that he could get the specifics on how our lender worked and using this information he let the listing agent know which made our offer the most desirable. Like I said before, we didn't really know what to expect from our agent and we never even asked him to do things, he just did them and now looking in the future if we ever need to buy a new home, I wouldn't have it any other way. The level of quick followup, connecting across the board with all of the different parties and maintaining us informed in a timely matter, while giving advice are in my opinion the best qualities that an agent should have. 

Hi it sounds like you don’t have a good agent. A buyers agent should review all the disclosures and be actively seeking properties for you to see and make good recommendations regarding comps and favorable offers. We worked with Sheri Madden of Marvin Gardens for two purchases in the past 5 years and she was a dream come true. We didn’t have to look for long since she was so on top of everything, she reviewed all disclosures and gave accurate advice . She would help you schedule all inspections and services and has many quality contacts. She really isn’t in this to just close a deal but wants to find her clients a home they be will be very happy with. I can not recommend her enough. Most people i know have a big change of luck when they get a good agent 

No matter what is "reasonable" or "normal", it sounds like your agent is not doing what you want her to do. So politely tell her you no longer need her services, and find another agent who WILL do all those things for you. And make sure you ask these questions up front when you interview a new agent. The market is really tough for agents right now (low inventory etc), so a good agent should be wiling to go over and above to get your business.

We are closing on a house today and we worked with Dana Cohen from the Grubb company.  She is fantastic -- sets realistic expectations for you, has a lot of local connections to get things done quickly, and is really great at giving you the pros/cons on a house based on what you're looking for.  We found a house, bid on it, and won the bid in two weeks of looking at open houses.  I'm happy to connect over the phone with you if you have additional questions.    

Our realtor, Lloyd Jung at Marvin Gardens in El Cerrito helped us buy in Richmond/El Sobrante and did all the things your are asking about. He sent us the highlights from each disclosure report, found us properties to look at and drove us around to see them He scheduled the inspections and the estimates from tradespeople. He really worked hard for us. Compare him to our realtor the first time we tried (and failed) to buy a house - a guy with tons of glowing 5 star yelp reviews who treated us like an annoyance and did absolutely nothing for us. Major difference in quality. I can imagine if our search took over a year perhaps we would’ve been on our own a bit more? But I kinda doubt it with Lloyd. He was great and we are so happy to finally be home owners!

Each agent works a little differently, but in my experience, they have all done some amount of review on the disclosures for or with us, and they have always scheduled appointments for inspectors, since they need to be there to gain access to the house.  In terms of contractors, I have gotten recommended names from them, and would expect them to be happy to organize the appointments, also due to the logistics of lockboxes, etc.  In terms of offer price, they tend to keep themselves at arms length from your final decision - I think it's a liability thing for them.  But, they should provide a lot of information as comps and then talk you through how each comp relates to or differs from the property in question.  Unsuccessful offers are common, so try not to get too discouraged.  I do hear that a lot of properties are being sold "off-market" nowadays, meaning that agents hear about properties that are available, without an MLS listing.  If you decide to switch agents, you might want to filter for someone who is well-connected or in a well-connected firm that would be hearing about a lot of these "off-market" opportunities.

My agent, who I highly recommend did all of these things on my behalf without my having to ask-- Farrah Wilder with Pacific Union-http://www.pacificunion.com/agents/9904-Farrah-Wilder

She also used to be an attorney.  So, she is incredibly savvy, sharp, and professional while being quite pleasant to be around.

Good luck!

California real estate agents/brokers are required, in sales of single-family homes, to do their own visual inspection and provide you with a written disclosure of anything they see.  But a buyer's agent won't ordinarily analyze the seller's disclosures for you, although of course they should ensure you get them and do their best to answer your questions.  It's possible that you're asking questions that need to be answered by a lawyer, a contractor, or other specialist - and in that case, your agent should try to get you some referrals.

Yes, your agent should schedule inspections, but this ordinarily happens after you're in contract, not before you make an offer!  It is very unusual to get inspections with your own contractors before you make an offer, so don't expect an agent to arrange that.

Determining offer price is again up to you, but of course your agent should be helping you understand the market, how to read comps and when to expect a competitive bidding situation (very common in the Bay Area, with contract prices often being MUCH higher than asking price) so that you can figure out how much to offer.  Your agent should also give you advice about how to write your offer to be as competitive as possible in ways other than offering a higher price. Keep in mind that prices in the Bay Area continue to rise, so you probably have to adjust your expectations from what they were a year ago. 

If you want to switch to a different agent, you'll get better referrals if you say which specific cities or neighborhoods you're looking in.  Most agents can do their best job in the particular neighborhoods they specialize in!

We worked with Berkeley Hills Realty and were really impressed with the services they offered. Tracey Sichterman, our agent, not only looked at disclosures with us, she was actually something of a "dwelling forensics" expert in our opinion. She often pointed out potential structural weaknesses and other elements of the house we were looking for that might cost money in the future to repair or bring up to code. Tracey also gave us suggestions for contractors--and in a few cases, she facilitated appointment making, but for the most part, we did it ourselves (figuring out everyone's availability can get tricky). If a contractor was particularly booked in advance, Tracey would sometimes offer to use her relationship to get us booked with that person sooner. All I can say is that we felt so well treated by Berkeley Hills Realty that we'll definitely use them when we sell our place. We'd used several other realtors in the past--both for purchase and sales--and we couldn't compare those experiences. I know this is going to sound over the top or corny, but with other real estate firms, it felt like a business transaction. With Tracey at Berkeley Hills, it felt like we were establishing a relationship someone who happened to have incredible expertise in house hunting. She was the consummate professional, but really authentic. Our first bid was not accepted, but we didn't think it had anything to do with our realtor (the seller took an all cash offer). Our second bid was accepted. I wouldn't be surprised if you have to make many bids: we've had friends who've made 6-8 bids before getting a house (not sure which real estate firm), but my sense is that they were still in a learning curve about exactly how much they had to offer. Sigh. It's brutal out there. Good luck. And be sure that you're really comfortable with your agent and trust him or her.

We worked with an agent who didn't really do those things. He just sent us property listings, which wasn't really helpful since we had access to the same information. He did send us places people were hoping to sell off-market, which can be an advantage in a market like this. 

We ended up going with Redfin. You can schedule to see houses pretty much whenever you want, and the people who meet you there are knowledgeable about the market, but have no incentive to get you to make an offer. (With the agent, we felt weird that his compensation made him incentivized to have us buy through him and spend as much as possible.) The people we met took notes on what we liked and passed them on to our Redfin agent (randomly assigned online) who pointed out places we might like from time to time. The agent is also paid a salary rather than a commission, and a bonus based on how you rate their services.  When it came time to make offers, the agent helped us figure out the disclosures, scheduled extra visits to the property, and helped us determine a competitive offer (price and contingencies). As first time buyers, we had a lot to learn about the whole process and she was super helpful. And, bonus, you get some money back - some of the percentage reserved for the buyer's agent goes to you, rather than Redfin. 

We used several agents concurrently.  One for each town we searched.  We were upfront with all the agents about this.  It look about a year and 10 formal offers before we finally purchased a house in the East Bay.  But we probably requested disclosures and looked hard at about 30 homes.  In this market I think that the most important thing that the agent can do is to predict the price a particular home will sell for, then it's up to you to decide if you want to meet that number or if you are feeling aggressive, exceed that number and by how much.  All the agents we used had extensive contacts with various service people.  Only one of them scheduled appointments and was there for the visit.  I think that this is somewhat unusual.

In order to come up with an accurate price, the agent must review the disclosures.  All of the agents we used did review the disclosures when they knew we wanted to make an offer but not till then.  It's time consuming but in all 30 cases, we did our own due diligence to determine if we wanted to make an offer.  Honestly most of the pages are boilerplate so the meat is the inspection report.

BTW we did wind up parting ways with one of the agents.  We worked with him from the very beginning and we felt we weren't getting the best service after a while.  Working with other agents really highlighted his short comings.  We tried to make it work when things went south but in retrospect I wished we parted ways sooner and found someone else.  The agent we were most impressed with was the one who we ultimately bought our home with.  She just knew everything about the town/market including knowing weeks in advance when property would be listed.  She was constantly reaching out to the selling agent or other agents in her network to gather information, something our other agent frankly did not do, even when I explicitly asked him to do so.  She nailed the pricing on all the homes we made offers on with her.  We only lost to all cash offers or by the thinest of margins.  The other agents were wildly off.  They simply didn't seem to be plugged into how aggressive prices had become and to a certain extent somewhat shell shocked by the high prices.