Back when I was merely a renter, I had no idea how convoluted it was to buy a house.
The trials and tribulations of dealing with real estate agents is frustrating enough.
I had one real estate agent that kept resisting my desire to negotiate a lower price on a home sale so that he could take a bigger cut. As most know, a real estate agent earns a commission off a home sale that is a percentage from the final sale price. Honestly, how can you expect a real estate agent to work for your benefit as a home buyer when you know that their incentive is for you to pay as much as possible? Remember, a real estate agent earns a smaller commission when they succeed in getting your home seller to take a small amount of money for the home. Mine balked at every attempt I made at trying to negotiate a lower price for the home I’m currently inhabiting. I had no idea going into this process that I would run into an issue like that, let alone with my own real estate agent. On top of dealing with dishonorable real estate agents, you also have to watch out for serious problems that result from home sales. For instance, you should know that an HVAC system’s age is a huge determining factor in a home’s value. If you’re buying a home with an ancient HVAC system inside, you might as well add the value of a new HVAC system to the home’s cost. But if you find a house with an almost-new HVAC system inside at a good price, you’ve found a steal. My home had a four-year-old HVAC inside but the HVAC supplier who installed it refused to transfer the warranty to a new homeowner. Therefore, I simply purchased a new HVAC system with a new warranty.