by Sue Brickman

Buying Team offers full range of services
Team Approach gives buyers more choice, power

Homebuyers looking for representation from an exclusive buyer broker may want to stop in...

"The team concept was introduced by Buyer's Network in an effort to provide homebuyers with every professional necessary to complete the home buying process," said Bob Simone, President of Buyer's Network.

"This is an exclusive concept created, by Buyer's Network for homebuyers to go through the whole real estate process smoothly, quickly, and at the least cost to them," he said.

"The buyer is actually like a quarterback, who calls the plays and tells the team what he or she needs, " he explained. "Typically, a buyer walks in, meets with an exclusive buyer agent (who represents only buyers), and is walked through the process of developing a team.

The buyer can hire any team member he wants or needs or use any other vendor, whether a family attorney or a local bank for a mortgage."

The whole idea behind the team approach, Simone said, is to give buyers more choice and power in their purchase.

"About 80 percent of the buyers will use some of the people on our lists after they interview them and the other 20 percent have already made a connection with a lender, attorney, or accountant," he said.

The basic team is composed of an attorney, up to three lenders, a home inspector, a financial planner or certified public accountant, and at the end of the process, they may involve an insurance agent that the buyer generally chooses on his own.

"They really don't need anything else," Simone said.  "That's a pretty tight group of people, and the buyer agent acts as a kind of intermediary between the buyer and team players, so they are always up to the same speed as the buyer wants the transaction to be up to."

The agent would make sure the attorney has the right paper work, that the home inspector is getting his report to the buyer, and that report is being reviewed by the attorney, Simone said.

The buyer agent can also set up meetings with the accountant so the buyer understands the tax advantages and special tax programs available to them.

Simone said his group also has a unique mortgage auctioning process which helps buyers "secure some of the lower rates in the mortgage industry."

This team approach, he said, "is one of the best ways to present ourselves as a buyer resource.  People get it.  The light bulb goes on.  They see that with a traditional broker (one who represents the seller), they are not going to get serviced as a true client."

The team approach, Simone said, doesn't cost the buyer any more, and in fact, may cost the buyer less than other approaches.

"When we're done helping assemble a team, the buyer usually saves more money then if the home were bought in a more traditional manner," he said.

The agents, however, never push a buyer to hire someone, relying on that buyer to do his or her own interviewing.

"That is their responsibility, to interview everyone they want on the team," he said.  "We just want to assemble a team they're comfortable with."