Real Estate Agents

A question that pops up pretty often in the real estate scenario is “How do I keep my real estate agent license while investing in real estate at the same time?” there are two major issues which come up which licensees face when buying selling and leasing properties on their own account. The first issue is disclosure. Disclosure deals with you are saying to people and when. The second issue is agency. Agency implies who you represent in a business deal or who the parties believe you stand for. So long as you abide by the rule in these arenas, trouble can be kept at a distance in the third area. Hence the licensed agent has much more advantages than a non licensed one. He is held in much higher esteem in the court and has much les to prove in case of an unhappy buyer, seller or tenant.

Certain disclosures must be made to the potential customer when an attempt to advertise to buy, sell or lease houses is made by a person as an agent. The potential buyers, sellers and tenants should be made aware of the fact that they are real estate agents. This can be dealt by putting disclaimers on all the cards, flyers and letters of the agents which gives out the information that buyer is a licensed real estate broker.

While in most states, license law entails the need for the agent to disclose that they hold the license on the very first contact with the potential buyer or client. Just to be on the safer side, verbal disclosure should be made each time somebody calls in to inquire about whether the agent will be interested in buying their home or a property which is available on the market.

There is a myth which is very popular in the real estate scenario that the potential customers will not be ready to work with them once they know they are agents. Or strangely enough, they might even presume that the agents are not serious enough about purchasing the property. However, the agents themselves disapprove of this popular myth. Inspite of having disclosed their identities as licensed real estate agent, customers do seem to be more at ease working with them. The customers do not doubt them or think that the agents are interested in listing their property as per the popular myth goes.

Verbal disclosure does not essentially mean the end of all forms of red tapism. Agents are most commonly sued because some party in transaction asserts that he failed to understand who the agent was represented and hence acted accordingly. The fear of the seller is pretty apparent here. While the seller was convinced that the agent was acting in his interest, the agent actually misguided him and gained monetarily by reselling the property to someone else and hence deceiving the seller. Hence the need for agency disclosure arises where it is clearly stated that the agent is representing some other party in this transaction and the seller is convinced that that particular party is this agent.

The real estate agents have a very important role to play in the real estate scenario. They have an invaluable source of potential deals for the sake of real estate investor - the multiple listing services. Since real estate agents monopolize on this information they are an important part of investor’s schedule. Dealing with real estate agents can prove to be difficult for the investors. The main reason for this being agents have an affinity for getting hold of commission with as little botheration as possible. Also, agents show a preference for home buyers who have hold on good amount of cash, good credit and immense buying power.

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