Dilemma of having friend/relatives as realtors! Confused?!

Do you feel blindfolded by your realtor friend?

Buying a home where your family can live happily ever after and which meets your basic needs is something that every homebuyer dreams of. In buying a home a homebuyer is assisted, for no cost, by a professional in real estate industry.  The homebuyer feels confident that his agent will provide him with the most professional service and ensure the followings:

1. Understand their needs
2. Subject home is as per their needs and wants
3. The price is right and the offered price is a fair market value
4. Home has potential to appreciate in near future
5. The demographics suit them
6. The appliances and home systems are in good order

Sometimes, a homebuyer loses the right of free expression and end up buying a home under undue influence of his/her friend or relative who happened to be a real estate agent. In certain communities the fear of turning away their friends and relatives is so strong that either the buyers backout of buying a home because they had 3-4 relatives/friends who are realtors or they end up annoying a few of them at the cost of their own freedom of choice and expression. A sense of being blindfolded.

What to do?

Actually the decision is all upon you. Over the period of my real estate practice, I got the following responses from some of the people I interviewed:

For those who go with their friends/relatives:

1. Our friend/relative understands us well. We are comfortable with him
2. We are afraid of social remifications if we don't buy through our relative/friend
3. Our friend is very professional, he discusses everything in details and shows his strategy
4. Our friend/relative ensures the personal information is not rumoured in the family circle
5. The relative was my spouse's brother/sister/mom/dad
6. He was with a reputed Real Estate Company like RE/MAX and we were sure of his professional ethics

For those who don't want to go with their friends/relatives:

1. We don't want to discuss our financials with close relatives
2. If we use one friend/relative as our agent, others will get angry
3. We will lose right to criticise or argue during offer
4. Bad experience as our relative pushed us to buy a home we never wanted in the first place. So we quit him
5. Relative/friend is a part-timer agent. We don't get to see many homes when we want to
6. We want to keep business and friendship/relationship separate
7. He worked in a no name brokerage with no backhand support. We couldn't trust him.

So to sum up, the decision is all yours. As long as your relative or friend shows professionalism and treats you and your information in the most ethical way, it is good to go with him.  BUSINESS SHOULD STRICTLY BE BUSINESS & NOT A FAVOR TO ANYONE. It is you who are going to commit for 25 years to pay. 

The video on RE/MAX's youtube channel is a nice watch in this context. Click here to see it.

Should you find yourself in need of some information or discussing your homebuying plans, please feel free to call me at 647-333-2273 or my office 416-232-9000 or email me at dealswithpaul@gmail.com.

Do you have a real estate purchase story to tell? You can send it to me at dealswithpaul@gmail.com.

By subscribing here, you will get all the updates and new informational blogs delivered before anyone else does get it.






Disclaimer: The above article is an original text based on Paul Cheema's experience with prospects. Your agreement or disagreement is a matter of sole discretion. Not intended to solicit clients already under other brokerage contracts.

Should you rent or own a home?

First time home buyers are always skeptical and afraid of getting into a long term commitment to buy a home. For most renting is the best option as they know it is a fixed amount they pay each month and then forget about the utilities and other home ownership related costs like utilities, property taxes, landscaping, maintenance, and the like.

But is renting really a better alternative? There are no wrong answers to this question. The tenants may have some issues with their credit, job, and other personal stuff for not going to be a home owner.
There are a couple of problems which come with a tenacy. The ones that I could some up are as below:

1. The safety of your family: How well do you know your landlords? You gave all your information when you rented a home, but did you think about getting homeowners information? No, Most of us don't do that for the fear of rejection. Checking up with neighbours is not a bad thought though.
2. Interference in your life-style: The landlords seem to dictate how you should be living in their basements or homes at all the times. Exceptions are always there. You find unable to host even little parties as this may be considered as noisey by the landlord and then getting an eviction notice or harrassment.
3. Stalking: When you come back from work, you always find as if someone has been through your entire living area, a personal domain and it is a freaky feeling.
4. Instability of life: Though signed tenacies are valid for one year, but under certain circumstances the leases can be terminated. A change in your residence may change your kids' schools, your daily commute expense, and so many inter-related things.

 The following table sums up the equity realization by a home owner vis-a-vis money loss by a tenant.

Particulars	Renting	Break-up (Buying)	Buying	Remarks
Purchase price	n/a		370000	The mortgage calculations are based on full price as CMHC Insurance nullifies the down payment to a greater extent.
Down Payment	n/a		18500	5%
Monthly Mortgage Payment		1790
Monthly Utilities		300
Taxes		329
Total Monthly payments	800		2419	@3.30:% roi, 5 YRS, On $370,000
Rent increase	3.1%		n/a
Total payments in 5 years	51000		107,400
Recaptured Principal	n/a		52538
Effective expenses	51000		54862
Property appreciation @ 4% per year	n/a	14,800
Value of property after 5 years		74,000	444,000
Net return in 60 months	Nil		126,538	This is your gain in 5 years.

Should you have a credit problem and can support mortgage payment only after one year, Rent-To-Own program could very well suit you. To know more on how it works you can call me by using my contact form available here.
Your comments are most welcome.

Disclaimer: Not intended to solicit clients already under brokerage contracts. The information projected herein has been provided only for the sake of research and  no representation of any kind is implied. The user of this information is advised to seek independent legal advice (ILA) before acting thereon. The information is intended only for research purpose. The numbers or data projected herein may change with market conditions beyond the control of sales representative and brokerage.