What Buyers Are Really Saying about Their Agents
RISMEDIA, April 18, 2006—Contrary to concerns about softening
real estate markets, U.S. home buyers expect their home values to appreciate,
according to a recent survey conducted by Stewart Title Guaranty Co.,
one of the nation's leading title insurance underwriters. In the survey,
those home buyers also highly rated the services of their real estate
agents, lenders and title company.
The single-page surveys were distributed to home buyers following
closings in the last eight business days of March 2006. A total of
1,125 surveys were returned from both first-time and repeat home
buyers.
"This is the first of an annual survey to be conducted by Stewart
to gauge home-buyer expectations, satisfactions and suggestions on
how the real estate transaction-services industry may evolve to better
serve our customers," said Malcolm S. Morris, president, Stewart
Title Guaranty Co.
"We are very pleased with the rating of 3.87 out of a possible
4.00 respondents gave their title service providers," said Morris. "Home
buyers expect their home to appreciate 10.0 percent in value over
the next year. That level of optimism bodes well for the continued
vitality of the real estate market through the coming year."
Some specific findings of the survey include:
-- When asked how more valuable they expected their home to be in
one year from the date of closing, no home buyers anticipated
that their property would decline in value. The median value
increase estimate was 10.0 percent for both first-time and
repeat home buyers. This figure is in line with the national
average as reported by the Office of Federal Housing
Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO), which found a one-year 12.95
percent average increase in housing values for 2005. (Source:
http://www.ofheo.gov/HPIState.asp?FormMode=Summary)
-- Buyers rated each of the transaction service providers
(lenders, real estate agents and title) extremely high.
Respondents were asked to assign a grade rating of either A
(excellent), B, C (average), D or F (unsatisfactory). The
rankings were converted to a grade point average (GPA) where A
is a 4.0 and F is a 0.0.
a. The title grade overall was a 3.87 GPA, with 88 percent of
respondents giving an excellent score.
b. Real estate agents were rated excellent by 85 percent of
all buyers, with an overall score of 3.79 GPA.
c. Lenders received a 3.57 GPA with 73.1 percent of home
buyers assigning an excellent rating.
Home buyers also were asked, "What one facet of the home buying
process needs most improvement?" They responded predominantly
with two themes: the amount of paper involved, and the amount (or
lack of) communication in the transaction.
"In this day and age of technology, buyers expect much greater
use of technology and less paper -- and they expect better communication
from the parties in the transaction," said Dr. Ted C. Jones,
senior vice president and chief economist, Stewart Title Guaranty
Co., who formulated the survey and analyzed the results. "These
findings validate the title industry's push towards a paperless process
with electronic signatures and transaction management via the Internet."
The survey's executive summary, instrument and complete customer
comments may be found online at http://www.stewart.com/page.jsp?pageID=1516.
I would like to thank RISMEDIA http://www.rismedia.com
for this useful information. Please visit their website for the latest
on real estate business trends.
The Listing Agent, unless specifically disclosed
otherwise, represents the seller in any transaction for the sale of
a home. It is that
Agent's fiduciary duty to protect the
seller's position at all times. No matter what they tell you their
loyalty will lie with their selling clients. That is why you want an
agent with experience like Gary
Ward to represent YOUR interest as a buyers agent when buying
a home.
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