Step by Step

Sign Our Fee Agreement

Our fee agreement is designed to be consumer friendly and even includes a cancellation provision (something you won’t find in the Realtor fee agreement). We are happy to send it to you. Our fees, other than the non-refundable fees, are only payable if we collect the commission check on your file.

Our Fees

We charge approximately half as much as a Realtor and we’ve set our fee at 1.35% of the purchase price or list price (whichever is lower) to prove a point: You can hire an attorney to do everything Realtors do (and more) for half as much as a Realtor. Our fee is deducted from the commission check we receive from the listing broker. There should be no out of pocket costs to you other than our non-refundable fees for showings: $45 – $60 per showing, and a $125 drafting per property. We do not have a $500 – $600 “junk fee” that most Realtors will charge you.

Get Auto-emails of Listings

We have all the same tools that Realtors have (technically I am one). We have full MLS access, Showing Time access, electronic lockbox access, ability to view comparable properties and much, much more. When you see a property that interests you, send us an email with the property address that you are interested in. We will then send you data on that listing and analyze it with you. If you want to see it, we will set up a showing for you or you can use our Showami portal to set it up yourself. We will also work on a comparable market analysis to help us determine together a buying strategy.

Gathering Data

If you are interested in a property, it is important to gather as much data as possible. We typically obtain the Sellers’ Property Disclosure, tax records, parcel maps and much more information for our clients. If available online, we also try to get building permit information to properly account for any construction that occurred on the property.

Advice and Counsel

Prior to writing any offers, we will advise our clients on all aspects of the process. We will provide comparable sales and other data to my clients to help them determine if they want to write an offer and the terms of that offer. We will typically call the listing agent to find out if there are other offers and find out what their seller is looking for in an offer. We will counsel and negotiate the transaction through inspection and all the way through closing. Together we will develop a negotiating strategy. Unlike Realtors, we are licensed attorneys and are qualified to review your closing documents for you (at no extra charge).

Inspections

Many buyers are being encouraged by so-called buyer agents to write offers that are not contingent upon an inspection. We strongly discourage writing offers like that. We believe that you need to get a property fully inspected including the sewer line, chimney and other inspections (depending on the property) as well as a radon test. We even recommend it for new construction. We can always declare to the seller that we are not going to call out minor items, but an inspection is a necessary step for almost all transactions.

Negotiating Advantage

Not only do you have a negotiating advantage because you have an attorney working exclusively for you (we will never represent the buyer and seller in the same transaction), you also have a unique advantage because of our fee structure. In competitive bidding situations our buyers often take the commission refund and give some or all of it to the seller. This makes your offer far more appealing than other buyers’ offers.

Closing

Realtors go to closing to pick up their commission checks. They are not allowed to advise you about the closing process. We review the title work and closing documents prior to closing as your lawyer and those services are included in our fee. We typically do not attend closing (there is no reason to be there).

Your Check

After closing the title company will send us the commission check. We characterize this money as unearned fees since we don’t get paid commissions. We get paid legal fees. So we deposit this money in the trust account on your behalf. Once it clears our account we write you a check for the commission refund less our legal fees. We can also have this money credited to you right at closing in many circumstances. Or, if the lender disallows it, we can apply some or all of the money towards the purchase price of the property.