General realty advice please

[Bali]

Hello

I'm am just beginning to look into the way the Canadian / BC house market works.
What I am seeing is that it seems more common to use a realtor to help find a property, as a buyer, than in the UK.
What I am not sure about is if this is convention, a requirement, or just has more benefit than in the UK.

FYI - here, all I would do is ring up & ask the agent if I could view a particular property I saw, whether by driving round, the local paper or the internet sites.

I would probably talk to a realtor, not least to find out about how things worked, when I came for a recce, but would not want to waste their time on a visit by needing them for every viewing, given I couldn't buy whilst on my recce anyway.

Anyone with the idiot's guide for BC, especially for a potential immigrant?

Thanks
Bali

[LynnUK]

Hi, we have only recently purchased a property in kelowna so I will try to explain what I know about how it works!
Typically there are two realtor's involved in a sale/purchase of a property, one acts on behalf of the seller and one on the behalf of the purchaser. As a purchaser you do not pay the realtor any money, their fees come from the seller.
We came out to Kelowna in the summer of 2008 for a week, before we arrived we contacted our realtor in Kelowna from the UK. We explained to our realtor that we were only on a recce, because like you we did not want to waste anyone's time, that said she was still more than happy to put together a selection of properties for us to view.
On our return in the summer of 2009 we contacted our realtor again, we had a list a properties that we wanted to view that we had found on MLS plus our realtor added a few more that she thought might be of interest to us. We ended up buying one of the properties from our realtor's selection!
The realtor does so much more for you than just let you into the property, they act as your negotiator and give you advice on solicitors and house insurance. Our realtor also supplied us with a list of all the utilities that we needed to contact.
I strongly recommend using a realtor, it saves you so much time and to be honest I am not sure how you would go about viewing many of the properties if you did not use a realtor. Like I said earlier you as the buyer do not pay for their service at all, so why not use one!!
If you would like the contact details of the realtor we used PM me and I will get back to you.
I hope that this has helped to make things a little clearer!!

[Bali]

Thanks Lynn

[Moops]

Lynn is an absolute star - she consistently offers her experiences to others on the forum! Huge

As Lynn mentioned, you don't pay a fee when you are purchasing a home. Many people don't realize, but when selling a home, you can also negotiate the realtor's fees too.... some may be open to that, some won't be.

My suggestion would be to contact a few agents and through correspondence, you will get an idea if they will be someone that you can work well with. I've seen many agents who will also provide a relocation type package and help you in familiarizing yourself with the areas in the city, as well as inform or assist you with the "what/where/how" of setting up the everyday things you'll need.

You can also purchase a home privately, but if you aren't familiar with the legal aspects of a purchase, it could cause you more angst than you're willing to take on!

A number of the local real estate offices also have property management teams that have rental listings that aren't advertised in the local papers (should you need to rent on a shorter term basis). The landlords rely on the team to provide them with good, reliable tenants.

[Bali]

Lynn is an absolute star - she consistently offers her experiences to others on the forum! Huge

As Lynn mentioned, you don't pay a fee when you are purchasing a home. Many people don't realize, but when selling a home, you can also negotiate the realtor's fees too.... some may be open to that, some won't be.

My suggestion would be to contact a few agents and through correspondence, you will get an idea if they will be someone that you can work well with. I've seen many agents who will also provide a relocation type package and help you in familiarizing yourself with the areas in the city, as well as inform or assist you with the "what/where/how" of setting up the everyday things you'll need.

You can also purchase a home privately, but if you aren't familiar with the legal aspects of a purchase, it could cause you more angst than you're willing to take on!

A number of the local real estate offices also have property management teams that have rental listings that aren't advertised in the local papers (should you need to rent on a shorter term basis). The landlords rely on the team to provide them with good, reliable tenants.

Thanks, I know am getting quite ahead of myself, but like the planning to have it to look forward to.
Bring on the summer.