How Do I Buy A Home Without An Agent
In California, there is no requirement that a home buyer has to use a real estate agent for their home purchase. A lot of tech-savvy and motivated buyers undertake a self-directed home search, and contemplate completing the purchase without an agent.
Unlocked's 1% Rebate Saves You Tens of Thousands.
In California, there is no requirement that a home buyer has to use a real estate agent for their home purchase. A lot of tech-savvy and motivated buyers undertake a self-directed home search, and contemplate completing the purchase without an agent. If you’ve found and evaluated the home by yourself, why should an agent make $50,000 when you’ve done all of the work?
Most Bay Area buyers, particularly those that have been through the process before, would gladly buy their next home without an agent if they could ‘earn’ the buying agent commission. With rising Bay Area real estate prices, the buying agent commission is tens of thousands of dollars. However, there are a couple of reasons why this could be problematic.
Firstly, listing agents would rather refer unrepresented buyers to a colleague or even steer them into a dual-agency agreement whereby they represent both the buyer and seller and earn twice the commission (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.
Secondly, arcane real estate laws only allow real estate brokers to be paid the agents’ commission. Thus, even i fa buyer does not have a buying agent, they would not be able to be paid the buying agent’s commission. While in theory you could submit a slightly lower purchase offer to account for the absence o fa buying agent’s commission, the listing agent will likely steer their sellers away from such an offer. So unfortunately, you’re unlikely to ‘earn’ any of the commission by buying your home without an agent (you may still want to go down this route for a more seamless process).
Thirdly, even though you may be comfortable going through the home buying process without an agent, it is always prudent to have an expert by your side, especially for such a large financial decision. The seller is likely represented by a licensed real estate agent, so you'll be better off having an expert representing your interests.
Fortunately, Unlocked is here to help such buyers who’d like a better deal than a traditional agent. We give buyers 1% of the purchase price cash back! That’s most of the commission back to the buyer (where we think it belongs). What's more, with Unlocked, you’ll get a full-service buying agent who’ll be able to help you with all aspects of the purchase. We’ve leveraged technology to deliver a more data-driven, transparent and seamless 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).
To learn more about the services Unlocked offers, please visit Buying With Unlocked, or contact us below.
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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.