Another real estate agent dilemma. Looking for suggestions.

We’ve been searching for a home in a mid to high-end range in a desirable neighborhood.

Our first agent, a friend, wasn’t a good fit. They worked part-time, lacked local market knowledge, and relied on a blanket strategy of submitting 10–15% low ball offers. Over time, we ended up doing most of the work ourselves—finding homes, running comps, and drafting offers—while they simply submitted them.

At the start of this year, we switched to a new agent with good reviews. To her credit, she’s knowledgeable about the area, thorough in due diligence, proactive with seller agents, and gives practical guidance on offer structure and contingencies.

However, she’s extremely cautious and tends to take the seller agent’s word at face value. There’s little pushback or assertiveness, often defaulting to “this market is crazy, you’ll need to go over asking.” While that’s sometimes true, we’ve missed opportunities where homes sold below asking and we didn’t even submit offers because we were advised that our offer of asking or lower would have very little chance of getting accepted. On top of that, her limited use of technology and reliance on basic tools can slow things down and miss obvious insights that a simple google search would reveal!

Part of this is just venting, but it’s also a genuine question—does it make sense in this market to work with a more assertive, negotiation-focused agent? Not necessarily a “good guy”but a jerk who can close the deal. Or is this just how things are now and agents have very little control?

submitted by /u/recordwalla
[link] [comments]

source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1s6vbe0/another_real_estate_agent_dilemma_looking_for/