Do I Need a Real Estate Agent to Buy a House? A Colorado Answer

You've been on the apps for weeks. You've walked a few open houses on your own. And you're starting to wonder what an agent would do that you aren't already doing.

So you typed it. Do I need a real estate agent to buy a house?

I've worked both sides of this for twenty years, the loan and the contract. So one question first. Have you found the house yet, or are you still looking?

Keep that answer in mind. The looking is the part you can do alone. What comes after is where the house gets won or lost.

No.

Nothing in Colorado law says a buyer has to have one. You can find the house, write the offer on the state's standard contract, hire your own inspector, order title, and sign with the title company on signing day.

What the law doesn't answer is who's looking out for you while you do it. The seller's agent works for the seller. They can be kind and helpful and still be on the other side of the table.

Not the search. The apps are good now. You don't need anyone to find you a house.

An agent's real work starts after you find the house. It comes down to four things.

An agent's real work starts after you find the house.

None of that is hard to understand. It's hard to do the first time, under a deadline.

And there's a quiet part. A good agent says no to houses for you. They've walked away from more houses than they've bought.

Which of those four would you feel sure doing on your own?

Yes, if you want an agent.

Since the national settlement over agent pay, an agent will ask you to sign a written buyer agreement before you tour a home together. It spells out what they do for you and how they get paid. That pay is a number the two of you agree on, and it's often asked of the seller in your offer.

Read it before you sign it. What does it cover? How long does it last? What happens if you want out?

Not as your agent.

In Colorado, one licensee can't be the agent for both the buyer and the seller on the same sale. What they can do is work as a transaction broker. That's a neutral role. They help both sides and advocate for neither.

Some buyers are fine with that on a simple sale. Others find out halfway through that neutral means nobody pushes back when the seller's inspection answer comes in thin.

Not automatically.

Most people picture it this way. No buyer's agent, so the price comes down. Right?

It usually doesn't work that way. The seller already agreed to pay their own agent. If you walk in alone, that money doesn't turn into a discount for you. It stays on the seller's side unless you negotiate it out of the price.

And to do that, you need comps, an inspection, and an appraisal condition in the contract. Which is most of what the agent was going to do.

So what's the saving worth if the price and the inspection are left to you?

Sometimes it does.

You're buying from family on terms you've already agreed on. You have a real estate attorney reading it. Or the house is for sale by owner, the seller has no agent either, and you've done your homework on the price.

Then the two hires that matter are an attorney for the contract and a strong inspector. If that's you, the steps are laid out in the for-sale-by-owner guide.

Where I'd slow down: your first house, a busy market, or a payment already near the top of what you can carry. That's where "I saved on the agent" turns into "I paid too much for the house."

The choice isn't agent or no agent. It's who's holding the pieces.

Most buyers have a lender in one office and an agent in another. The offer gets written on a number the lender hasn't checked. Then the seller counters at seven at night, and nobody on your side can say if it still fits your month.

I hold a Colorado mortgage broker license and a Colorado real estate broker license. I run the loan and I write the offer, on the same numbers, and you know that on the first call.

A couple in Littleton had toured on their own for two months and were about to write through the listing agent to keep it simple. The disclosure said the agent would be a transaction broker. The draft left almost no time to respond after the inspection. I ran the loan, rewrote the offer with dates that protected their earnest money, and negotiated the inspection. Same house. Same price. A contract that worked for them.

When the seller counters, the answer about your payment comes from the person who ran your file, in the same call. When the inspection turns up a roof, I already know what your loan will allow and what to ask for.

In the Vail Valley I'm at the showings myself. In the Denver Metro a showing team walks the houses with you while I run the loan, the contract, and the negotiation. See the buy a home in Colorado page.