Last blog, I ended saying I would discuss what you would get from our company and the national organization of Realtors^®. However, how a client is represented has come up as a topic and I feel it is more important to write about this now.

Rhode Island has a new agency law about which your Realtor must inform you. As members of our state organization, Rhode Island Association of Realtors (RIAR), we are required to provide you with a RI Mandatory Real Estate Relationship Disclosure during your first meeting, before listing your property, or, in the case of a buyer, before putting in an offer to purchase a home. This form is not a contract, but it does clarifies how you would like to be represented. You should know that because of changing circumstances, you may need to sign this form several times.

What happens when you are the seller.

Your Realtor can work with you as a Designated Client Representative to help you decide how to market and promote your property to the public, decide on a listing price, and negotiate with buyers. He or she will act in your best interest and keep your information confidential.

However, your Realtor may need to work with you, with permission, as a Neutral Dual Facilitator. This would happen if your Realtor is assisting both you, the seller client, and the buyer client. She then becomes a facilitator and needs to be neutral and cannot advocate for either of you. For example, if one of your Realtor’s buyer clients takes an interest in your home, your Realtor is a client representative of you and a client representative for the buyer. Your Realtor can assist both you and the buyer throughout the transaction as a neutral dual facilitator.

Now you ask, how can I be represented as a Buyer?

Again, there are multiple ways, and you have choices as to how you want to be represented.

Commonly, a Realtor will work with you as a Designated Client Representative to help you find that dream home. Once found, he or she can help you decide how much to offer or counteroffer on any property listed by another agent. Here, the Realtor will act in your best interest and keep your information confidential. In this case, you have met a Realtor with whom you feel comfortable and you want this Realtor to help guide you through the home buying process.  You will ackowledge this by signing the mandatory RI Real Estate Disclosure form along with your Realtor.

But, like what was stated above in seller representation, your Realtor may need to work with your permission as a Neutral Dual Facilitator, because he or she represents both of you. This is looking at that example from the buyer point of view. This happens if you are working with an agent and become interested in one of that Realtor’s listings.

Finally, the Realtor can just be a Neutral Transaction Facilitator. This means that the Realtor can assist you with required paperwork, but does not represent you and cannot negotiate on your behalf. For example, if you walk into an open house and meet the listing agent for the first time, and you want to put in a specific offer; the agent can help you with your offer as a neutral facilitator.

Stay tuned for more information on choosing a Realtor.

Spring is finally here and most of my agents, myself included, are seeing signs of life in the Real Estate market.  The latest figures are confirming what we have been seeing, and a visit from NAR’s top economist last week gave us all a little hope that we are finally starting to work through the excess inventory that is bogging down the market.

Bucking the national trend in home sales, The Rhode Island Association of Realtors (RIAR) showed a 12.4 % increase in sales from March 2008 to March 2009, and existing home sales increased 21.5% from February 09 to March 09. National Association of Realtors data showed a nationwide 7.1% decrease in sales during the same twelve months.  RIAR statistics include Rhode Island sales only, while NAR data includes the Fall River and New Bedford metropolitan areas. NAR reported that distressed sales accounted for just over half the sales in March virtually the same as in Rhode Island.

Lawrence Yun, NAR’s Chief Economist was in Rhode Island last Wednesday speaking at a RIAR conference.  He feels the national housing market “has returned to its normal balance after a buying frenzy in the first part of this decade led to a collapse last year, that can set the stage for buyers to return to the market and house prices to stabilize.  A median-priced house is as affordable as it was in 1998, before the run-up in housing prices.”

This Week’s Real Estate Insight:

You can take it from me, or you can listen to these two economists, Yun believes conditions are right for recovery to begin in Providence. “The buyer should be coming back, Providence will be the first housing market in the Northeast to emerge from the housing slump, and  University of Rhode Island  economist Len Lardaro agreed with Yun, saying “Now would not be a bad time to buy real estate – at the right price.”I’d be thinking about buying a house.”