Only a minority of buyers hire a "buyer's agent" whose primary responsibility is to them.
According to Halstead agent Kevin Baum, renters and buyers pay approximately 25% more per month to obtain private outdoor living space in the city.
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But Colby Sambrotto, the founder of ForSaleByOwner.com and USRealty.com, a discount broker, says that after trying to sell his own home in New York by himself, he was forced to hire an agent to get it shown to potential buyers.
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Most buyers get a referral for an inspector from their real estate agent.
Most buyers and sellers, it seems, prefer to use an agent: Rightmove says that it now lists around seven out of ten of all properties for sale in Britain.
Property agent Girish Acharya says three sales he brokered fell through because the potential buyers received extortion calls.
Bill Enns, a central California real estate agent specializing in farmland, fields dozens of calls every week from potential buyers.
Hamptons International, another estate agent, estimates that the British now account for around 60% of foreign buyers in certain areas of southern Spain and Portugal.
Mike Shaw, a real-estate agent who has worked for 15 years in the San Francisco market, said buyers often want something already renovated or vintage because they don't have the time or the interest to hire designers and architects.
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Buyers and sellers say that younger brokers can also bring a drive and determination that a more seasoned agent might lack.
"These intermediaries help buyers and sellers contact each other at a low cost, but do not engage in other estate agent activities, so it is unfair to expect them to go out and check all the property details of all the sellers on their websites, " said the new consumer affairs minister, Jo Swinson.
Sharon Ballas, an agent in Houston, says many spec homes are selling "at the Sheetrock stage" that buyers then customize to their tastes.
Real-estate agent Pericles Economides said foreign homeowners make up 90% of the sellers in his listings, while local buyers eager to convert their devaluing pesos into more stable real estate make up nearly all his current buyers.
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