Massachusetts Real Estate Talk

A discussion on the Greater Boston Area real estate market on Boston Herald Radio

Massachusetts home buyers should demand 100 percent loyalty 100 percent of the time from their real estate buyer agent. An exclusive buyer agent only represents home buyers, never sellers. When real estate agents work at firms that represent both buyers and sellers conflicts can arise. The following audio is from an interview on The Money Show on Boston Herald Radio on March 27, 2015. Host Rick Shaffer discussed a variety of home-buying topics, including using an exclusive buyer agent, the importance of a real estate lawyer and attending open houses without buyer representation, with Rich Rosa, co-owner of Buyers Brokers Only, LLC. 

The following is the transcript of the interview on Boston Herald Radio between The Money Show host Rick Shaffer and Buyers Brokers Only, LLC co-owner / co-founder Rich Rosa on March 27, 2015. 

Rick Shaffer: Welcome back to hour number two of today’s version of The Best Money Show on radio. As promised actually all day and all week, our guest today is Rich Rosa, who is an attorney and buyer’s broker with Buyers Brokers Only, LLC. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention Buyers Brokers Only, LLC is an advertiser here on Boston Herald Radio, and if you listen to The Money Show at all you’re well aware of that, and we’re very, very happy to have them as such. Rich how are you?

Rich Rosa: I'm well, how are you Rick?

Rick Shaffer: Not too bad, not too bad at all. I want to go over some of the stuff we went over last time, but we’ve got some additional questions that we’re going to go through as well. We’ll get into the specifics of Buyer's Brokers Only in a bit, but quickly give me an overview of your career and how you came to be with Buyers Brokers Only, LLC, or how you basically decided, you’re one of the founders, correct?

Rich Rosa: Yes. I founded Buyers Broker Only with my business partner Dave Kres, it’s been almost ten years now, 2005 and my background is I graduated from Northeastern University ...

Rick Shaffer: Actually, I do mean to interrupt you, the fact that you’ve been successful since 2005 says a lot about your business in and of itself, because you have been building the business during one of the toughest real estate markets we’ve had in half a century.

Rich Rosa: Yes, there were some tough times around 2008, 2009, 2010, yeah.

Rick Shaffer: Right. Congratulations to you on that. I apologize for interrupting, but go ahead.

Rich Rosa: Sure. Like I was saying my background is I graduated from Northeastern University School of Journalism in 1991, I graduated from New England School of Law in 1995, I’ve been an attorney almost twenty years now. I practice law, I’ve been practicing law for twenty years, but it was primarily a trial attorney, in the first ten years or so after law school and then started Buyers Brokers Only in 2005 like I said. 

The way it sort of started was my business partner Dave, he was actually a law clerk for me when he was in law school. When he graduated ... shortly after he graduated he got his broker’s license, and a real estate broker’s license, and he did some real estate and then we got to talking and we decided to start Buyer's Brokers Only and to only represent buyers.

Mainly because in the real estate industry, traditionally real estate companies are seller-centric, they focus on sellers and look out for sellers and we thought it was time for some people to look out for buyers. Not that we’re the first to do this, by any means, exclusive buyer agencies have been around long before Buyer's Brokers Only but that’s sort of what got us into the business.

Rick Shaffer: Let me jump on a point which I ... Because I used to be skeptical of buyers brokers and part of it was because there was different ways that they got paid, I know there were some buyers brokers that would charge people a flat fee plus whatever commission they might make. Explain how buyer's brokers get paid now to put that issue to rest for potential buyers who are still skeptical of it.

Rich Rosa: Sure. Different buyer agents get compensated in different ways. Some still do require sort of a retainer before they will represent someone, others require a certain percentage so if the cooperating commission is lower than that percentage, the buyer would have to make that up. For the most part, in the way we do it is that, a buyer agent gets paid from the listing agent, in other words, a seller hires a listing agent. 

In Massachusetts they’re typically paying their listing agents four or five percent per seller house, and then that listing agent puts the house on the multiple listing service and they will stay right on there. The public doesn’t see this, but brokers could see this, it will say what they would call a cooperating commission is. A buyer agent is typically getting two percent or two and a half percent of the sale and they’re splitting that commission with the listing agent and that’s how they’re getting paid. Our clients aren’t paying us any money out of their pockets.

Rick Shaffer: Now what happens if the listing agent has to split it with someone in their office, basically that’s their problem, so to speak. My point being that there’s no ... have you ever found any listing agents who are hesitant to deal with a buyer who has a buyer's broker  because they have to pay that fee to the buyer’s broker?

Rich Rosa: Not anymore. That may have been the case twenty, twenty-five years ago but it’s very common that people have buyer agents now. Listing agents expect that most of the time they are going to split that commission. You bring up an important point, which is some people think that if they don’t have anybody representing them and they do it themselves, somehow they’re going to get a better deal, but in fact the only thing that changes or, two things change. One is the listing agent gets to keep the whole four or five percent for him or herself, and the second thing is the buyer has nobody looking out for them, so there really is no downside to having a buyer agent.

Rick Shaffer: Frankly I have long told people, as long as you have a good broker, whether it be seller or buyer, I think anybody who is involved in the purchase or sale of a property should have a good broker representing them. Buyers more so than sellers, but sellers as well, plus it just makes the entire process better if you have an experienced broker and frankly an experienced attorney representing both parties. It avoids a lot of problems, including the fact that emotions often get involved with the buyer and the seller, but usually the buyer’s broker and the attorneys become very pragmatic and make deals that should happen, happen. I would assume you agree with that.

Rich Rosa: I agree with that absolutely. When everyone’s fully represented but with brokers and lawyers, things do tend to go smoother. Things get done when they’re supposed to get done and they get done correctly, like you said with good brokers involved and good attorneys involved and it makes everyone’s life easier and makes for a lot less stressful transaction for both the buyer and the seller. 

Rick Shaffer: Explain the difference between a designated buyer's agent and exclusive buyer agent and why the exclusive buyer agent, I assume on that I’m quite clear, is much better than having a designated buyer agent. 

Rich Rosa: Sure. Everyone sort of understands that the listing agent represents the seller. That agent has a fiduciary duty to the seller, their loyalty is to the seller and they’re not looking out for the buyer, they’re looking out for the seller to get the best price. In Massachusetts, a home buyer has two choices. They could have a designated buyer agent, or an exclusive buyer agent. What a designated buyer agent is, is someone that represents buyers, home buyers. 

Typically they represent both buyers and sellers but the important thing is that they work at a firm that represents both buyers and sellers. What that means, as the title suggests, they are designated to represent a particular buyer. Everyone else in the company that they work for, their loyalty really is to any seller that they may have, that they’re listing property for. Where problems can arise is you’re working with a designated buyer agent, that person both represents buyers and sellers and you as a home buyer likes a property that that buyer agent also was listing. 

If you want to go forward with making an offer on that property, that designated buyer agent is now becoming what’s called the “dual agent,” they’re representing both the seller and the buyer. Obviously it’s pretty clear what the problem with that is. You’re really not getting one hundred percent loyalty from your buyer agent if they’re also representing the seller. The other issue that comes up is that, that you may like a house that someone in that buyer agent’s office is listing. Now you’ve got the potential conflict of your buyer agent is working closely with the agent who is representing that seller. Frankly that office is representing the seller because your agent’s just been designated to represent you.

Rick Shaffer: Even though it’s legal for them to do it and they might claim there’s no conflict of interest, there’s sort of an underlying feeling of a conflict of interest. Whereas, if you have an exclusive buyer’s agent then there’s no question that the buyer’s agent by fiduciary duty is to you, the buyer and there’s no conflict of interest at all. 

Rich Rosa: Absolutely. The other thing that comes up when you’re working with a designated buyer agent who’s office may be listing the property, is somebody’s office is providing incentives to their agent who bring in buyers but then buy property that’s being listed by that office, so there’s that conflict as well. When you’re working with an exclusive buyer agent, that means not only are they a buyer agent, but every one in the office, everyone in the company, is a buyer agent, that they never represent sellers. You never have a situation of dual agency, you never have a situation where they’re trying to get you buy a property that they’re listing, whether it's someone in their office is listing, because no one lists property at all. There’s one hundred percent loyalty one hundred percent of the time.

Rick Shaffer: We’re going to take a break in a minute but very, very quickly, because I think people sometimes are not totally sure on this, explain what fiduciary duty is.

Rich Rosa: Fiduciary duty is when you owe loyalty or responsibility to a particular party or client that you’re representing and that you’re looking out for their best interest.

Rick Shaffer: You have to basically treat them how you would treat yourself or even better, when making decisions or protecting their money or anything like that. 

Rich Rosa: Absolutely. 

Rick Shaffer: Actually, I won’t give you the number but I will tell you that we’re talking to Rich Rosa, who is a founder and a member of Buyers Brokers Only, LLC. We’re going to take a break and we’ll come back and continue our conversation with him right here, on the Best Money Show on Radio on Boston Herald Radio. 

Welcome back! We’re talking with Rich Rosa this hour, who is a founder and member of Buyers Brokers Only, LLC, which is an exclusive home buyer agent. Actually, I don’t think I asked this the last time Rich, do you only represent buyers who are buying residential homes that they’re going to live in, or do you ever represent buyers who are looking for either, actually I’ll give you two categories. One is strictly investment and the other is, do you ever represent buyers who are looking for like, a three family that they’re going to live in, but then obviously rent out the other two units.

Rich Rosa: Yeah, we do represent investors who do both of those things, buy multi-selling houses that they’re going to be an occupant in, and then rent the other unit or two units and also people that are strictly investors. We don’t do very much commercial property, like big industrial pieces of property or things like that, but we do represent investors.

Rick Shaffer: Have you ever done ... Actually let me put it this way, what’s the largest property that you have ever, or that Buyers Brokers Only has represented a buyer on?

Rich Rosa: Probably a three-family. I can’t think of anything bigger than a three-family.

Rick Shaffer: Somebody wants to buy a twenty-unit building, or wants to buy a mixed-use building or something, you usually don’t get involved there.

Rich Rosa: That’s not something that’s in our expertise, no. 

Rick Shaffer: Okay. You point out in some of your literature that despite the benefits, many buyers don’t hire buyer’s brokers and I certainly understand that because back in the old days, it was kind of a fuzzy area in some places, but two questions. Do you know what percentage of buyers hire buyer’s brokers now, and why do you think it is that so many buyers, other than the reasons I’ve mentioned, do you know of any other reasons why people don’t hire buyers brokers?

Rich Rosa: I don’t know the exact percentage, if I had to guess it’s probably somewhere around seventy-five percent of people that are represented by a buyer agent at some point in the process.

Rick Shaffer: Really? 

Rich Rosa: Yeah, I think it’s probably about that high.

Rick Shaffer: That’s a lot higher than it was ten years ago, which is good.

Rich Rosa: Most of that by the way, though, would be designated buyer agents. There’s just not that many exclusive buyer agents out there. Most real estate agents want to be able to get both sides of the commission. There’s very few exclusive buyer agents. Most of that seventy-five percent is designated buyer agents.

Rick Shaffer: I have always told people to get a good real estate attorney and one of the numerous reasons why is that and it’s not the main reason but, a good real estate attorney can help you find other professionals as a buyer or as a seller, that you would need in the home buying/selling process. I would assume that a good buyer’s broker like yourself, can do the same. You can refer people to good real estate attorneys and property inspectors, and mortgage company/banks that you’ve dealt with, correct?

Rich Rosa: Yeah, that’s a big part of our service to our clients is make more referrals to banks and mortgage companies, to real estate attorneys, home inspectors, insurance agents.

Rick Shaffer: One of the things that I always tell people when they’re selling a home is one of the big things, maybe not the biggest, or maybe one of the biggest things that a seller’s broker can do for you is to help you find what the proper price that you should put on the home is, because that’s the most important thing when selling a home. I think people underestimate how important it is for a buyer to know whether a piece of property is priced properly and whether it’s a descent deal or not. Tell me how, or tell our listeners how, buyer’s brokers can help their clients in figuring out whether a property is priced properly, or what’s a fair offer to make and how you go about doing so. 

Rich Rosa: Sure. Well, what you’re referring to is what’s called CMA or comparative market analysis. Obviously that’s a big part of what we do for clients. Everyone does it a little bit differently, there’s not one way to help a client determine what that price should be and what they should offer. The way I do it is I'd like to be very transparent. Rather than just tell a client that their house is worth, that the house they want to buy is worth “X” amount of dollars, I like to do a lot of research on the MLS and then download that data into a spreadsheet for my clients. 

So that I’m not just telling them that I think it’s worth “X,” I think it’s worth “X” and here’s all the data. What I’ll do is, I like to do a couple of different things. Let’s say the house is listed for 399. I might look up all the comparable sales between 375 and four and a quarter, to give people an idea of what that price range gets you for a house in that particular city or town or that neighborhood. 

I might also look up houses that have the same amount of rooms and bedrooms and bathrooms, and other characteristics and then put that data in there. Or I’ll also look at the trends in that particular city or town, are the prices going up, are they going down, how fast are they going up, things like that. I provide all that data to my client so that we could come up with a negotiation strategy, which I think is really important to have a strategy, because you talked about how the emotions sometimes get in the way. 

If you have a strategy, it takes over the emotion out of it. You tell a client to figure out what are we going to offer, when we get a counter-offer, what is going to be our next offer? We don’t worry too much about what the counter-offer is, we just know this is going to be our next offer. That’s a better way to negotiate, rather than to react to whatever the seller is doing. That is very important, that's the key point too, you want to get a counter-offer.

You want to get the best price you possibly can, but you also want to make an offer that gets a counter-offer because if you don’t get a counter-offer, you get just a “No” from the seller then you’re stuck with two bad decisions. One bad decision is to walk away, and that’s not a good decision because you like the house that’s why you’re making the offer to begin with. The second bad decision is then to make another offer, because all you’ve done is negotiated with yourself. You’ve made two offers before the seller has come down in price at all, and when that happens, buyers typically end up paying more than they would have if they got that counter-offer. Once you engage the seller in the negotiation, usually you could do better than you would have if you didn’t get that first counter-offer. 

Rick Shaffer: Two questions along those lines. First off, people ask the question how much below the asking price can I offer without insulting, so to speak, the seller. First off that depends on whether the seller has priced it properly, correct?

Rich Rosa: Absolutely. That’s the whole point of doing that comparative market analysis because sometimes, houses are priced very well, sometimes they’re priced very high. You want to do that to get a good idea of what the market value is. It’s really important in this market, because we’re in a market right now that’s very hot. There’s not a lot of inventory, a lot of houses are getting multiple offers on that, and it’s easy to get caught up in that emotion. 

You hear about all these multiple offers and you automatically assume “Well I’ve got to offer this price, or I've got to go over this price,” but sometimes it’s just not priced right, and if someone else if willing to overpay for it, that’s their problem. You need to know what a house is worth, so you’re not just getting caught up in the emotion of it. 

Rick Shaffer: That’s like sixty to seventy percent of the ball game in my opinion. Two things along those lines, people ask, “Well can I ever, make what would be an insulting offer?” My response is, as long as you’re willing to have this seller say “No,” I mean if you want to try, fine. Just recognize that, if you make what is called an insulting offer, then there’s a good chance you’re not going to get it. 

Assuming somebody doesn’t want to go that route, and assuming the house is priced properly, after you’ve done your market analysis or you’ve done comps, sort of the shorthand in the business, where do you usually ... Do you have like a percentage below the asking price that you usually tell a buyer to offer, or does it really depend much, much, more on what the market is like, this market, where we have a relatively high demand, but extremely low supply. 

Rich Rosa: I think there’s a number of factors. I think we’re using touchdown [Inaudible 00:21:48], the low inventory is certainly a factor. I think that another important factor is knowing whether or not there’s other offers. Typically I will ask a listing agent, do you have any other offers on the property? Certainly if they have no other offers and you don’t anticipate there’s going to be another offer before you make your offer, that’s very different than knowing that “Okay I’m going to make an offer now but there’s already three.” What I tell clients and what typically happens is, if there’s multiple offers, you’re going to get one shot at it. 

There’s not going to be a negotiation, there’s not going to be a counter-offer, in most situations, the seller’s are going to look at all the offers and pick the one with the best price and the best term. That would also be a factor. Now let’s say for instance like we said I think it’s priced fairly good, and there’s no other offers, what would I tell my clients to offer? Once we determine what we want to pay for it, I typically tell clients you don’t need to go more than about eight to twelve thousand dollars under where you want to finish. There’s this idea that somehow if you go really low, that you’re going to meet in the middle, but that’s typically not how it plays out.    

I usually say, “Look if you want to get it out express start about eight or twelve thousand dollars under that price and we should be able to hopefully get to that price point.” 

Back to your point about insulting offers, if a place is overpriced and we do have to make an offer significantly below the least price. What I usually try to do is when I email to the listing agent and I always like to email for two reasons. One, everything I’m saying is in writing and two, I could copy my client on it and my client knows exactly what I’m saying on their behalf. 

When I send that email out to the listing agent with the offer and the other documents that go along with an offer, I would usually explain, “look, we know that this is quite a bit under what you tell us the house is listed for but these are our reasons.” Maybe I’ll include some comps or maybe I’ll just go over some of the things that we saw in the house. Like it needs a new roof and the heating system is very old and things like that.

Sometimes I’m actually doing the listing agent a favor because they have got a seller who’s not being realistic unless the listing agent knows that. That’s the third reason to send an email because I found that sometimes the listing agent will then just forward my email to their client and they are happy to do it because I've just made maybe the same case that they made when they got the listing which is, this is why it’s really worth this much and not what the seller wanted though for before. 

Rick Shaffer: Right there you have given just another sparkling reason why people should have a good buyer’s agent because most home buyers are not going to know would not think to do that. We’re talking with Rich Rosa who is one of the founders and member of Buyers Brokers Only, LLC. We’ll take a break; we’ll come back with more and continue our conversation with Rich Rosa right here on the Best Money Show on radio on Boston Herald Radio.

Welcome back, we’re talking with Rich Rosa who is the founder and one of the members of Buyers Brokers Only, LLC. Specifically Buyers Brokers, LLC was established, you said in 2005, I’m I correct?

Rich Rosa: Yes, that’s correct. 

Rick Shaffer: At that point it was just you and your partner correct?

Rich Rosa: Yes, it was just me and Dave Kres.

Rick Shaffer: Okay, at this point how many brokers does Buyers Brokers LLC employ and what geographic areas do you cover? 

Rich Rosa: There are 24 of us and we cover most of Eastern Massachusetts, greater Boston, Wisconsin County, South Shore, North Shore and Southern New Hampshire. 

Rick Shaffer: Okay. Are all of the brokers licensed in New Hampshire or you just have specific ones that are?

Rich Rosa: There is just three of us that are ... three brokers that are licensed in New Hampshire and the rest are licensed in Massachusetts.

Rick Shaffer: Suppose somebody hires you specifically to represent them but they are looking up in Andover let’s say but they end up spreading their search area to include say Nashua, New Hampshire. Do you in those situations then sort of work in conjunction with whoever your associate in New Hampshire is?

Rich Rosa: Yes and in fact one of those three brokers that’s licensed in New Hampshire is my business partner Dave and so we work together on a lot of our clients. Yes, we could do that and actually we do that sometimes just within Massachusetts. Sometimes people are just looking for a geographic area that is a certain distance from Boston because they work in Boston. 

It's often our brokers will team up together and maybe somebody works with them on the South Shore and somebody else works with them on the North Shore. 

Rick Shaffer: One of the things I like about Buyers Brokers LLC is that you are all attorneys. Buyer's brokers don’t have to be attorneys but you have certain rules in your company that all of your brokers are attorneys. Why did you decide to do that?

Rich Rosa: Both Dave and I were both attorneys when we started the company and as we decided to expand, we liked the idea of just having that sort of level of professionalism and knowledge of the law and real estate going forward. We are not a law firm. We don’t give legal advice but what we tell clients is, we have a certain knowledge base about real estate and everyone who passes the bar has to take property law and pass the property law section of the bar exams. 

I tell clients that although I’m not going to give you advice, I don’t forget all that I know when we go inside the house and so I say something that I think is legal in nature that is a red flag then I’ll just tell the client, "You need to talk to your attorney about this."

Rick Shaffer: On the other hand I’m sure if you get a buyer who doesn’t have an attorney you urge them to have a separate real estate attorney representing them. Correct?

Rich Rosa: Absolutely, a big mistake buying a house without an attorney. In fact we think it’s so important that our business model is that we give a small rebate after closing to all our clients to offset the cost of their legal fees. I think that everyone should really have an attorney, it’s very important.  

Rick Shaffer: I couldn’t agree with you more, I think it’s outright stupid for somebody to buy a home without having an attorney in fact I’m an attorney but when I buy a property I always hire a friend of mine who’s very ... who I’ve worked before. He’s an excellent real estate attorney for a number of reasons not the least of which I’m sure you share the old saying that, “An attorney who has himself as a client is a pretty stupid person.” What should home buyers know about, some specific questions. What should home buyers know about getting mortgage including and I’d like you to stress this the fact that it’s very important to be pre-approved for a mortgage before you make an offer on a home? 

Rich Rosa: Well, that’s correct. I mean in fact it’s customary in Massachusetts that when you make an offer, you provide a written offer along with the pre-approval letter and a copy of a deposit check. In Massachusetts no one is going to consider your offer without pre-approval letter.

Rick Shaffer: Which is smart frankly but a pre-approval letter doesn’t mean you'll definitively get the loan. The property still has to be appraised and there are other things, there has to be a title search and what have you. It basically says that as long as there is no problems on those ends, the bank has said they will lend you up to X amount of dollars to buy a piece of property. 

Rich Rosa: Yes, it’s still somewhat of a preliminary looking in to borrow finances. Yes, it all depends on the lender. Some will do a much thorough check into the potential borrower before they will issue a pre-approval letter and others do a little bit less of an investigation but ultimately yes that’s what the letter is saying that, “This person, we've checked their credit, we've checked how much money they made, we know how much that they have and we’ve determined that they could afford to purchase a house that costs this much.”

Rick Shaffer: I know that you think that having out of State lender or be it at a bank or a mortgage company can be a bad idea, I agree with you. Why do you think it’s a bad idea?

Rich Rosa: It’s a bad idea for a couple of reasons. When you’re making an offer especially in a situation where there is multiple offers. Listing agents are advising their sellers when they are considering offers on a lot of things. One of those things may be that two offers are very close and one offer has a pre-approval from a well-known bank in the State of Massachusetts and that listing agent maybe familiar with that bank and he knows that they do a thorough job of investigating a person’s finances before issuing a pre-approval letter.

On the other hand you’ve got this person who went on the internet and found a company in California who did the pre-approval online. What a seller doesn’t want is to go through the process be three or four weeks into it and to find out that the seller, I mean excuse me the buyer cannot actually afford the house and have it fall apart. One reason to use an instate lender is that it could make your offer stronger. The other problem that comes up and you know this as an attorney. Massachusetts is just one of 13 States in the country that requires an attorney to do the title examination, to certify title. 

The problem that I've run into in the past is that you broker with a lender who is out of State and they work in a State which is referred to as a title State. They have title companies that do the closings. This can be quite confusing for these lenders when they don’t realize that they have to get an attorney in out of State to do this and a lot of times they find out too late and it really delay things and it could be a problem or if you share if your buyer agent is recommending an attorney for you right away when they know you are using someone from out of State, that lender out of State might just pick any old attorney. Who knows whether he or she is any good?

Rick Shaffer: Especially in this market where it’s such a low supply, you often times are competing with other buyers. If a seller had to chose between you and another buyer and basically everything is even, the offer and the conditions and everything. You've got a good local lender and the other person has got a lender in California that may tip it in your direction.

Rich Rosa: Absolutely, I don’t think there is any question about that.

Rick Shaffer: We’re talking with Rich Rosa who is the founder and one of the members of Buyers Brokers Only, LLC. We have to take a break we’ll come back with more of our conversation with Rich Rosa right here on the Best Money Show on radio, on Boston Herald radio.

Welcome back, before we get back to our conversation with Rich Rosa from Buyers Brokers Only, LLC, I want to remind you as always the wise consumer is always the informed consumer so before buying, selling, renting, financing, signing any real estate related agreement or before making any major money decision whatsoever, it’s always best to speak with and take the advice from qualified attorney, accountant and or if you find a good one or a great one so start to make calls to Susan Kaplan your financial planner.

Let me also thank my producer, engineer, tech master and all around guru here at the station and the Money Show, Christian Burgoyne doing a great job as always and thank Rich Rosa for being with us. Actually, I should also mention that if you’re not a follower of Susan’s and mine on Twitter you should be for a whole bunch of reasons. We tweet out all kinds of articles that we just can’t get through here on the show like the things I read today for example you can find on my Twitter account. 

There is not a lot of cross over between what Susan and I tweet out like 99 percent of it is different. When I get home it’s night, I tweet out the link for today’s show as well as our twitter library so for example if you want to re-listen to this interview, you could do so by going to ... by finding that link but you have to do that through our twitter by being a follower of us on Twitter. My Twitter address is @RShaffer1, that’s @RShaffer1 and Susan’s is @SKaplan111, S-K-A-P-L-A-N-1-1-1 so it’s @RShaffer1 and @SKaplan111. Towards that end a couple of things. 

First Rich, hopefully we’ll have a chance to get it again but just to make sure how do people contact you and what’s your ... the phone number for home, for Buyers Brokers Only, LLC and also your web address where they also can listen or watch, excuse me listen to this interview as well as the interview we did with you before because we’ll supply you with that. Frankly me although I love people to go to our Podcast, they want to listen to the interview on your Web page because we edit it down for our clients so that you don’t have to listen to all the commercials again. 

Rich Rosa: Yes, they could contact Buyers Brokers Only at 978-835-5906.

Rick Shaffer: Okay, give us that number again?

Rich Rosa: 978-835-5906. They could go to our website, it's buyersbrokersonly.com. There they could see all of our brokers, they could contact via email. There are also various guides that they could download. Guides about buying a house, getting a mortgage, things like that and they could also read our blog where we post quite a bit of information about home buying.

Rick Shaffer: I assume there is a place there that they can click on to listen to the interviews you’ve done here on Boston Herald Radio?

Rich Rosa: There is, yes. 

Rick Shaffer: We are running out of time but I definitely want you to as you did last time in 200 words or as many words as you want. Explain why, quickly and I think we’ve done that in the last couple of hours. Why people should definitely get a buyer’s broker but why and frankly I’ve been very very impressed with all of this, the way you run your company.

Rich Rosa: Thank you.

Rick Shaffer: Why people should when they hire a buyer’s broker they should hire Buyers Brokers Only, LLC?

Rich Rosa: I think it’s very important that people to do their homework and they should interview more than one buyer agent and get a feel for who they want to work with and who’s going to be a good associate for them? I hope that one of those people they interview is an exclusive buyer agent at Buyers Brokers Only. Our model here is you do what’s best for the client, what’s in the client’s best interest even if it means more work and less money. That sort of model has served us well like you said we’ve grown quite a bit over the last 10 years. Quite frankly it’s really been over the last six years or so. 

That’s when we really started adding other buyer’s brokers to our company. We really take a lot of pride in the fact that we have excellent reviews on websites like Angie's List. I hope that people will give us a call and take the time and talk with one of our brokers about what they hope to accomplish with home buying.

Rick Shaffer: I have to say, two things that I’m very impressed which are ... Actually a lot of things but two things that I’m especially impressed with is the fact that you grew and I didn’t even had thought of this the last time we talked to you. You really grew the company during a very difficult real estate period so that says a lot and the fact that all of you are attorneys I think is a major plus for people. It’s just that a lot of knowledge. If you know a lot about real estate but you’re also an attorney, you're just going to be further ahead of a lot of people who are in the real estate market.

One thing I want to ask you specifically because a lot of people say, “well, I’m going to go to some open houses and such and then I’ll look for buyer’s brokers.” Explain why they probably should get the buyer’s broker first?

Rich Rosa: There are a number of reasons. First, one of the most important reasons is when you just show up at open houses and you’re talking to that agent of that open house. That agent works for the seller, their obligation is to do what’s best for the seller. What ends up happening is when they start to get in a conversation with the agent at the open house and they reveal information that they probably shouldn’t reveal to the agent. If they ultimately make an offer on that house, that agent is going to use that information against them to benefit the seller. 

It could be something as simple as, the agent at the open house asks, “Where do you live?” and you say, “Well my spouse is relocating. We’re relocating from out of State, my spouse has got a new job in Boston. He or she starts in sixty days.” Now they know that you need a house because you just walked in into the open house with two children who maybe are going to be starting school in September and maybe it’s July when you are doing this or June. They know that you have a time-frame that you need to find a house. That’s a piece of information that I would never reveal to a listing agent if I were working with a buyer. Now that listing agent knows that information and maybe use it against you when it comes time to negotiate. 

Rick Shaffer: Excellent point plus as you mentioned you as a buyer’s broker and as a lawyer walking in you may see some red flags about the property that they would never think of. It’s good to have you there from the beginning. Real quick Rich it’s been a pleasure talking to you but give out your phone number and your web address again?

Rich Rosa: Sure, our phone number is 978-835-5906 and the website address is buyersbrokersonly.com.

Rick Shaffer: Okay, give out those again real quick you have to give out everything twice on radio.

Rich Rosa: 978-835-5906 is the number to call and online it’s buyersbrokersonly.com.

Rick Shaffer: Rich, always a pleasure to talk you. Rich Rosa, founder and member of Buyers Brokers Only, LLC. I’m very impressed by them and if you’re looking to buy a home ...

Rich Rosa: Thank you.

Rick Shaffer: ... You should definitely talk to them. Looking forward to talking to you again, from myself, from Rich Rosa, from Susan Kaplan, from Larry Kaplan and from Christian Burgoyne, you’ve been listening ... we’ll see you Monday at 4:00 by the way. You’ve been listening to the Best Money Show on Radio, Boston Herald Radio.