Do I Need an Agent to Buy a Home in the Bay Area
Modern savvy Bay Area home buyers are self-directing their home search. Gone are the days when a home buyer is relying on their agent to alert them to new listings, and then touring the open home with their agent.
Modern savvy Bay Area home buyers are self-directing their home search. Gone are the days when a home buyer is relying on their agent to alert them to new listings, and then touring the open home with their agent. Websites like Redfin and Zillow make it easy for buyers to get email alerts of new MLS listings, and many buyers prefer to tour open houses on their own schedule, without the pressures and logistical complexities of their agent.
After finding their dream home and readying to submit an offer, some buyers, particularly those that have been through the buying process before, contemplate completing the purchase without an agent. In California, there is no legal requirement that a buyer has a real estate agent, and most of the purchase documents and processes are standardized. Why should an agent make$60,000+ for submitting your offer when you’ve done all of the work?
Unfortunately, unrepresented buyers may find that trying to buy a home without an agent runs into problems. Listing agents would rather refer unrepresented buyers to a colleague or even steer them into a dual-agency agreement whereby the listing agent represents both the buyer and seller (whose interests are they really looking out for?). For buyers who are adamant that they don’t want a buyer’s agent, the listing agents may straight refuse to work with them, and ignore any purchase offer that they submit.
At Unlocked, we always strive to achieve the right balance between adding value as your licensed full-service agent, but ensuring you’re still in the driver’s seat throughout the process. We’re not here to be pushy or steer you into a home that is not right for you, or to get in the way when you don’t need us. We’ve leveraged technology to deliver insight and streamline the process, to help buyers where we think we can add a lot of value (e.g., valuing a property, reviewing the disclosures and submitting a competitive offer). We also think the buyers should keep more of their money, and so we offer 1% cash back to buyers. We like to think the result is better service, better insight, and an industry-leading 1% cash back.
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We cover the entire Bay Area. We've helped clients buy homes in San Francisco, North Bay, East Bay and South Bay. We also cover LA and San Diego in Southern California.
We provide all of the services of a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. We can help with as little or as much of the home-buying process as you require. Some clients come to us with a home already found and a price in mind, and need assistance with assessing the home and executing the transaction. Others are still figuring out their budget, what they're looking for, and advice on where to focus their search. Wherever you are in your home buying journey, we’re here to seamlessly guide you through your home buying process - finding the right home, valuing it, understanding the disclosures, submitting a competitive offer, and closing the transaction. We're with you from start to finish.
Yes. Unlocked is a fully-licensed California brokerage (CalDRE #02060530) and all of our agents are fully-licensed California sales agents and members of the California Association of Realtors (TM) and the National Association of Realtors (TM).
With Unlocked, you’ll be working with one of our fully-licensed real estate agents to get all of the services provided by a traditional real estate agent, with better data-driven tools, increased transparency and more responsive customer service. So in many respects, your buying experience will be the same as working with a traditional real estate agent - only better!
In terms of how we’re different, firstly, we offer 1% cash back. This is the largest buyer’s rebate in California (that we know about)! That is tens of thousands of dollars that you can put that towards buying new furniture, renovating your kitchen and bathrooms or throwing that all important housewarming party (or more responsible uses like paying down your mortgage).
Secondly, our backgrounds are different than traditional real estate agents. We are a Stanford MBA and a Yale Law JD, who have also worked at some of the top management consulting, law and private equity firms (Bain & Company, Boston Consulting Group, Wachtell and Bain Capital). We leverage our data-driven, customer-oriented experiences to deliver a more insightful, analytical and responsive home buying experience.
Thirdly, Unlocked has built custom analytical tools to bring data, insight and transparency to the key buying decision points and streamlined the buying process. For every home you’re interested in, we provide our Custom Valuation Report, an easy-to-interpret spreadsheet of recent comparable transactions, competing listings and third-party valuations, as well as our Disclosure Review Summary, a comprehensive summary of the 200+ pages of disclosures.
All-in-all, we’ve designed the buying experience that we would have wanted when we bought our homes, and we’re sure you’ll love it, just like our current and past clients have (check out our Yelp reviews).
One of our licensed real estate agents personally leads each transaction and will be your day-to-day point of contact throughout your home buying journey. We work closely as a team, and are able to jump in for each other if and when you have a time-sensitive request.