I'm also in the process of buying a home for the first time, and did some search on Trulia/Zillow. It was OK, but the data gets really stale. One home was sold already before it was taken down. I did find out that Houston has a really nice site, har.com that lets you do basically everything Trulia & Zillow does. Realtors have other interface(s) into the same data, which lets them do different things like N sided polygons instead of just squares for map searches.
Tours vs images is definitely an issue. Some people are just bad photographers, some only have 6 images (Houston MLS requires 6 images for a posting). Some are good photographers, that make things look bigger than in person.
Experience is hugely variable though. I called 2 agent offices, and got stuck with their most inexperienced Buyer's Agent. The more experienced people are doing sales of homes or commercial, and getting a cut of the commissions of the people under them. Some Googling led me to roughly a 60/40 split between agent & office, along with the agent paying a desk fee (~$50/monthly). Since the principal is still getting paid, you can involve them if needed for second opinions or more nuanced explanations. Agents are getting roughly 3% of the sales price.
Still read all your documents. I've caught things that slipped past my realtor, and also brought up questions for her to answer.
Inspections are a mixed bag. They have a preferred list, and should also provide you a legal document stating their incentives for any recommended providers (including home warranty companies). I ended up going with one of my realtor's preferred inspectors, but only after calling all 5 on their list, and several more listed on Yelp.
Knowledge goes back to experience. My agent was basically bowled over by 2 of the new home builders in the area. It was so bad I considered buying the Realtor's Residential Construction Certification program (1 day course, ~$300, they'll sell to anyone) and going through it myself if I went with new construction.
Another point about knowledge is that even with experience, you can come up with stuff they don't know. Neither my agent or the broker (my agent's boss) had worked with anyone that negotiated their lender origination fees. I got $500 off one lender and $1000 off another.
You can do polygons on har.com map search, their new map search with neighborhood boundaries is very nice too. Given the existence and utility of HAR, I've had a hard time justifying using zillow/trulia when searching. Heck, both times in recent years I've bought a house, I set up a saved search in HAR and my partner and I would browse listings at night. Effectively, all our agents had to do during the showing process was schedule visits to our top properties.
In the US, agents get roughly 6% of the sales price. The sellers's agent gets 3%, and the buyer's agent gets 3%.
In the UK, agents get roughly 1.6% of the sales price. The seller's agent gets 1%-2.5%, and there is no buyer's agent. There are other costs (survey and lawyer fees) but these are not large either, and aren't related to the price of the property.
Regarding the US, I think the typical deal is that the seller's agent and broker each get 1.5%, and the same for the buyer's agent. Some agents are their own brokers, but I believe that's rare.
This split is about how the realtor splits their commission with their employer and/or the umbrella company which provides marketing, access to MLS etc., right?
Yes. The broker is the one who is "really" doing the transaction. A broker can handle a deal on their own; an agent must use a broker as well. Wikipedia's not-entirely-clear description is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_estate_broker#The_differen...
We had this trouble as well. Our Realtor helped us find a nice infill development by a very flexible builder. He knew we were FTHB that needed hand holding. He dumped us on them and didn't show up until the deal almost fell apart. We did ok on the functional upgrades but botched the design. We're now faced with doing a full house remodel of a brand new house :(
Tours vs images is definitely an issue. Some people are just bad photographers, some only have 6 images (Houston MLS requires 6 images for a posting). Some are good photographers, that make things look bigger than in person.
Experience is hugely variable though. I called 2 agent offices, and got stuck with their most inexperienced Buyer's Agent. The more experienced people are doing sales of homes or commercial, and getting a cut of the commissions of the people under them. Some Googling led me to roughly a 60/40 split between agent & office, along with the agent paying a desk fee (~$50/monthly). Since the principal is still getting paid, you can involve them if needed for second opinions or more nuanced explanations. Agents are getting roughly 3% of the sales price.
Still read all your documents. I've caught things that slipped past my realtor, and also brought up questions for her to answer.
Inspections are a mixed bag. They have a preferred list, and should also provide you a legal document stating their incentives for any recommended providers (including home warranty companies). I ended up going with one of my realtor's preferred inspectors, but only after calling all 5 on their list, and several more listed on Yelp.
Knowledge goes back to experience. My agent was basically bowled over by 2 of the new home builders in the area. It was so bad I considered buying the Realtor's Residential Construction Certification program (1 day course, ~$300, they'll sell to anyone) and going through it myself if I went with new construction.
Another point about knowledge is that even with experience, you can come up with stuff they don't know. Neither my agent or the broker (my agent's boss) had worked with anyone that negotiated their lender origination fees. I got $500 off one lender and $1000 off another.