I'm ready to strangle my real estate agent

Can I break a buyers agent contract? I'm so sick of her.

I live outside philly and it's just as pricy as LI in the area we are looking. She keeps sending me higher and higher priced houses despite being told many times what our budget is.

Just now she sent me a mathematical analysis of house increasing our budget by 100,000 is "only" 700 more a month. I'm so glad 700 dollars is pocket change for her, but it's certainly not me for.

I wrote her back a semi bitchy email and she responded that she is only looking out for our best interest. It's taking all my willpower to respond that no she's not, she looking out for her commission.

I'm ready to strangle my real estate agent

If you haven't found something with her yet, and are not planning on buying something she has shown you, most will definitely let you out of it. you just have to break it off and ask for cancelation paperwork. tell her its not working out.

She probably is looking out for her commission, but not in the way you're thinking. She's probably just looking to sell you a house, not necessarily move you higher in price on purpose. In general, if someone can push their range up, its easier to find a nice house and an easier sale for her. That doesn't mean that is the right move for you. In other words, she think she is looking out for your best interests in buying a house you'll like, but obviously she doesn't have to pay for it.

Re: I'm ready to strangle my real estate agent

If you signed a contract with her, you can definitely ask her to release you from it. Just explain it's not working out and you feel it's best to part ways.

She may or may not agree. I mean, as an agent, I would never want to continue a relationship with a client who no longer wants to work with me. I've never had anyone ask me to release them from a contract, but if that ever happened, I would not see the point in forcing someone to be miserable by continuing on in the process with me. It's really important to have trust between agent and clients, and to have a good ongoing relationship.

However, if your agent is not the broker/owner of her company, she may need her broker's permission to release you (the contract is really with the broker, not the individual agent). The broker may want to assign another agent from the company to work with you who will be a better fit.

But you don't know if you can get released until you ask, so it doesn't hurt to ask!

On another note - I don't know your history with the agent, but is it possible that she was just exploring alternative with you? For example -- and I am not saying that this is the case with you -- I have clients who want more than their budget in a particular area will allow. If I have shown them everything in a price point, sometimes I will explore alternatives, such as expanding the geographic area or upping their budget or revising their must-have house criteria. I never do it in a pressuring way, but just raise ideas that perhaps my clients haven't thought about. You never know what will work out, and my job as an agent is to be proactive for the client.

As far as the mathematical analysis - I've discussed monthly payments with clients. Sometimes people get hung up on price alone, but unless you are paying all cash, the monthly outlay is a more significant number to look at. Sometimes people don't realize that every $1K in your mortgage only adds about $5 to the monthly payment. Again, maybe you were aware of this, and maybe the agent was wrong in presenting things with a pressuring tone or suggesting that $700 more a month is no big deal (that's ludicrous!). But just playing devil's advocate here.

In my opinion, it's not really worth it to try to "upsell" a client and push them out of their comfort zone to make a LITTLE more money in the short-term -- most agents would rather make less on a transaction and have a very satisfied client who will hopefully refer lots of future business.

If you've been happy with her so far, maybe it's worth a conversation with her to say that you feel like she is pushing you to consider homes that are out of your financial comfort zone, and that you want an agent who will work with you with your budget. If that's not her, then let her know you will need to move on. But maybe give her a chance to change her approach (if you otherwise like her and think she can get the job done for you).