Would you look for a different realtor? How did you find yours?

[arivecchi]

IMO the best thing you can do in the home-buying process is inform yourself - so easy to do with the internet these days. I would not just rely on your realtor. It is your decision and your money at the end so you need to make an informed decision. The fact that you are only being presented with houses in your upper range would trigger alarm bells for me. I would interview a couple of agents and go from there.

[Indianamom2]

I've only bought one house thus far, but I wish I had switched realtors. I never felt like she listened to what we wanted. She was nearing retirement age and I think she was just *done* in her mind. We ended up finding the house we eventually bought.

If I had it to do over, I definitely would have changed realtors. If you aren't being shown what you want (repeatedly) or you feel like she just isn't listening, it's not worth wasting your time.

[MoJo]

Both of ours were referred to us by friends who had actually used the realtor in the home-buying process, and that worked well for us.

The first thing I'd do is point out to the realtor that you want to see listings for all homes in your price range, or all homes that meet certain criteria. Our first realtor started only showing us homes that were in a $10,000 band of price ranges until we said that we'd like to at least see the listings for ones that were priced lower. If an attempt at communicating exactly what you want from the realtor doesn't work, I'd find another. (And I'd tell my aunt why. The realtor may be a great friend, but a poor realtor, or a realtor whose real interests are a different type of business than what you are giving her.)

[tmarie]

No--I would start interviewing other realtors. If you have friends or know people who have recently moved, ask for strong referrals. My mom was a broker and owned her own real estate business in another market, so when I went to look for a real estate agent to sell our last house, I shopped around. It was very eye opening to see what kind of presentation the different agents made (some were just obviously more in tune with the market or obviously trying to get us to sell our house for a lower price than it was worth/buy a house at the top of our range instead of helping us shop for the best deal, and how often they were open to having open houses at your house (I ended up going with a broker who was willing to have one every 2 weeks--if she couldn't do the open house, she paid one of her colleagues to do it for her). It is also important to look at what price range the agent's other clients are buying and selling in. If your range is below her average sale, some agents won't invest as much time in you b/c her commission will be smaller than her other deals. That said, good agents work hard for all of their clients regardless of price range. They know that superior service will result in repeat business and referrals. GL!

tmarie