We’ve been searching for a home in a mid to high-end range in a desirable neighborhood.
Our first agent, a friend, wasn’t a good fit. They worked part-time, lacked local market knowledge, and relied on a blanket strategy of submitting 10–15% low ball offers. Over time, we ended up doing most of the work ourselves—finding homes, running comps, and drafting offers—while they simply submitted them.
At the start of this year, we switched to a new agent with good reviews. To her credit, she’s knowledgeable about the area, thorough in due diligence, proactive with seller agents, and gives practical guidance on offer structure and contingencies.
However, she’s extremely cautious and tends to take the seller agent’s word at face value. There’s little pushback or assertiveness, often defaulting to “this market is crazy, you’ll need to go over asking.” While that’s sometimes true, we’ve missed opportunities where homes sold below asking and we didn’t even submit offers because we were advised that our offer of asking or lower would have very little chance of getting accepted. On top of that, her limited use of technology and reliance on basic tools can slow things down and miss obvious insights that a simple google search would reveal!
Part of this is just venting, but it’s also a genuine question—does it make sense in this market to work with a more assertive, negotiation-focused agent? Not necessarily a “good guy”but a jerk who can close the deal. Or is this just how things are now and agents have very little control?
Another real estate agent dilemma. Looking for suggestions.
byu/recordwalla inRealEstate
Posted by recordwalla
12 Comments
FInd ad agent who will back your strategy and still submit offers below asking when the data supports it.
Just tell them what you want and if they don’t do it…
Too many people operate under the assumption that we’re at the mercy of real estate agents. Fire them, fire them quickly when they don’t work for you.
Your goal: get the best house at the best price for your needs.
Any realtor who can’t help you with that? Gone.
My agent got our offer in before he boarded a plane at the airport.
You TELL the agent what you want to do and they HELP you.
If they refuse to put in your offer I would FIRE THEM with their company.
And adding, you do need grounds to fire them. So document their refusals.
This is a business contract that is seriously legal.
You have to go through the steps if they are NOT working for you.
Depends entirely on the market. When it comes to “lowballs” it’s also highly variant on the individual listing price. For instance I live in a hot market. Let me give you 3 homes on the market or recently sold
1. Nice condition big house in super hot neighborhood. Lists at 700k. IMO true value about 725-750k. You’d get laughed out of the room even offering list. Some person with questionable judgement ended up getting obsessed with it and paying 800 (way too much IMO, like 50k above the next highest sale in the area of a much better house)
2. Lower priced home in medium hot area. Lists at 475k. Pending in a day. I am pretty sure this home sold around list price, I doubt it got to 450k or 500k. Lowball probably would have been rejected.
3. Home priced at 750k that…generously…is worth 650k-675k. Lowball the hell out of them, or stay away from buying a lemon
Yes an assertive get it done agent will do better for you. My advice make a template have them have an offer ready with everything except the purchase price and address ready to go so when it comes time they just fill that in add a contingency or whatever you need and boom a thirty minute thing just takes 5 now
These people work for you, just like any other contractor. There are about a million realtors out there that will do anything you want and help you.
Kinda feels like your choosing between two extremes tbh I wonder if its less abt nice vs aggressive and more abt how much you trust her calls… if your already second guessing a lot, that probably says something idk..
You don’t need a jerk, that can majorly backfire. It often does. You want someone who isn’t afraid to submit your offer, though. It’s possible that the homes that you saw close for lower than what you would have offered ended up being negotiated during due diligence, so there’s that. What should be very clear here is that if you don’t submit an offer, you won’t get the house. If your agent doesn’t understand those things, it may be time for a new one. I’d have this discussion with them first to see how they react. You should not be having to micromanage your agents though.
You used the word “advised”. She’s giving advice. You want to put in an offer at or below list then instruct her to write the offer and send it for your signature.
It’s really that simple.
>she’s extremely cautious and tends to take the seller agent’s word at face value
Does not compute
Agent in Ohio here. Using the latest technology, it doesn’t take me more than 10 or 15 minutes to put together an offer and send it to you for signatures even if I don’t think it’s gonna work. I’m still obligated to put it through.