Most homeowners hire a professional contractor or handyman when they need to do some remodeling or repair work around their house, but some people prefer to "Do it Yourself." They love to spend their weekends browsing through hardware stores and working on projects at home. It gives them the satisfaction of a job well done - and saves a considerable amount of money.

And like remodeling, while most homebuyers hire a real estate agent when it comes to shopping for a home, some buyers prefer to "Do It Yourself." They love to spend their weekends browsing through classified ads in the newspaper, surfing the "homes for sale" listings on the Internet and visiting open houses in their desired neighborhoods. It gives them the satisfaction of finding their dream home on their own - but does not necessarily save them any money.

However, that's about to change. Best Mortgage is pleased to offer a new program that we call the "Do It Yourself Homebuyer Service." For the adventurous few who prefer to go it alone when searching for a home, not only do you get the satisfaction of finding your dream home without a real estate agent's help - you can now SAVE MONEY doing it!

Here's how …

If you are a "Do It Yourself" homebuyer, you may spend weeks, months or perhaps even years searching for the perfect home, doing all the legwork on your own. But eventually there comes a time when you have to write up an offer to buy a house. Since you haven't been working with a real estate agent during your home search, you don't have an established relationship with an agent you can trust. Therefore, you don't have anybody "on your side" at the bargaining table. In order to make your purchase offer, you have only two, equally undesirable, choices:

1. You can call up the listing agent and have that agent present your offer to the seller. But remember that the listing agent is contractually obligated to represent the seller's best interests in the transaction. Anything you say to the listing agent - such as "Here's our initial offer, but we're willing to go $10,000 higher …" - will go straight to the sellers. The listing agent has no incentive to negotiate a lower sales price for you. In fact, just the opposite, because the higher the sales price, the higher the sales commission the listing agent will earn on the sale.



2. If you don't want to make an offer through the listing agent because of the disadvantages described above, you can call up another real estate agent and have him or her present your purchase offer for you. But since you'll be working with a virtual stranger, how hard will that agent really work for you? We've seen many cases where an agent called in to write up a purchase offer for a "Do It Yourself" homebuyer was more interested in getting a quick and easy commission than truly working hard to get a good deal for the buyers. In one recent case, the buyers actually lost their dream house because of poor representation by the agent who was supposed to be working for them:

"We met our first agents during a recent open house in our neighborhood. They seemed to be service-oriented and were very responsive at the beginning. They spent a day showing us the houses that were available at the time. But we did not find anything that we liked and since then we had not received any new information regarding new listings. Luckily, we have been following the market ourselves through the internet for past two months and we finally found the perfect house which was just listed. It was a house suitable for our needs and was listed at a very reasonable price. We called up our agent and had to wait them for several hours before they could show us the house. 10 minutes later, we wrote up an offer at full price because we liked the house very much. That was the beginning of a long series of problems that eventually ended up with our offer being bumped out of first position by a back-up offer due to misinformation, miscommunication and just plain poor service by the agent who was supposed to be representing us! We then contacted Steve Tytler at Best Mortgage and asked if he could try to save the deal for us. Steve did more work for us in two days than our other agent did in 4 weeks! It was a big difference to have a real 'Buyer's Agent' on our side compared to the first agent who seemed to be very busy all the time, and perhaps more concerned about their commission and their real estate company. As an independent real estate broker, Steve didn't have to play office politics. He concentrated on getting the best deal for us. We couldn't have been happier! Unfortunately, Steve was not able to save our deal because the seller was pressured by the real estate brokerage company who was representing the seller and the buyer we were competing against (who is also a real estate agent in the same real estate brokerage office). It was just too late and too complicated. If we had used Steve as our Buyer's Agent to begin with, we would be living in that house right now. It was very frustrating, but we learned our lesson. The next time we find a house on our own, we will call Steve Tytler and have him present our offer!" -- Tongtong & Yong (last name withheld by request), Medina, WA

Until now, whether you made your purchase offer through the listing agent, or another agent picked at random, you were basically defenseless because nobody in the transaction was really on your side. You did all the work of finding the home - not the real estate agent - but then you had to depend on a complete stranger to handle the biggest financial investment of your life.

Fortunately, you now you have a THIRD option …

The Best Mortgage "Do It Yourself" Homebuying Service!

Best Mortgage founder Steve Tytler is a licensed real estate broker with more than 14 years of real estate experience. He is so highly respected in the real estate community that several Seattle area newspapers have published his weekly column on real estate since 1990. Steve's column currently appears every Sunday in the Everett Herald.

As a Best Mortgage client, we are offering you the opportunity to have your home purchase transaction negotiated and closed by one of the top real estate experts in the Puget Sound region - Steve Tytler.

Here's how it works …

If you are a "Do it Yourself" homebuyer, we will be happy to provide you with all the latest home listings from the Multiple Listing Service computer. Just tell us the location, price range, number of bedrooms, school district and any other search parameters that you care to name, and we will email you a list of all the homes currently on the market that meet your criteria. You go out and find your dream home, and when you are ready to make a purchase offer, contact us and Steve will represent you as your Buyer's Agent.

You will have the peace of mind of knowing that you are working with an expert real estate broker that you know and trust, and you can be certain that Steve is working for you - not for the seller or the real estate company!

Best of all, this service Saves You Money!

That's right. Steve's expert services do not cost you a single penny. In fact, we pay you when the deal closes.

Like any other real estate broker, Best Mortgage will receive a commission paid by the seller when the sale closes. From that sales commission, we will credit 1/2 of our commission to YOU at closing to help pay your loan closing costs!

For example, based on the typical 3% real estate commission paid to the selling office, if you purchased a $250,000 home, you would receive about $3,750 credit at closing. If you bought a $400,000 home, you would receive about $6,000 credit at closing. And so on …

It's a "win-win" situation for all parties involved! You have your purchase offer handled by a professional real estate broker that you can trust and respect, and who has only one goal in mind: getting the best deal possible for you. The seller pays the exact same real estate commission that they would pay to any other real estate agent who brought them a qualified buyer, so there is no additional cost to either the seller or the buyer. And Best Mortgage earns a real estate commission that we can share with you to help reduce your closing costs on the purchase mortgage.

Now, before you sign up for our "Do It Yourself Homebuyer Service," let us explain exactly what the program is - and what it is not.

First of all, we are not trying to steal business away from real estate agents. We strongly encourage most homebuyers to find a good agent and let him or her do the work of finding the perfect home for you. Most people don't have the time, the knowledge or the energy to be a successful "Do It Yourself" homebuyer. If a real estate agent is working hard to find a home for you, you are obligated to have that agent write up the purchase offer because that's how they make their living.

Second, Steve is not in the business of driving buyers around to look at homes. If you need that kind of service, you should be working with a full-service real estate agent.

Third, Steve's time is very valuable and extremely limited. He can represent only one or two homebuyers per month. Therefore, we do not encourage most of our homebuyer clients to use Steve as your Buyer's Agent because he simply doesn't have the time, and unless you are a true "Do It Yourself" homebuyer, you need more personal assistance than Steve is able to provide.

But if you are one of the few buyers who prefer to search for a home without a real estate agent, Steve can provide a very valuable service by acting as your Buyer's Agent when you are ready to make a purchase offer. Here are the benefits you receive:

1. When you find a home and you are ready to make an offer, Steve will write up the Purchase & Sale Agreement and negotiate the best possible sales price and terms with the seller. You will have a real estate expert on your side in the transaction.



2. Steve will monitor the purchase transaction from start to finish, making sure that your interests are represented and protected at each step of the way.



3. At the close of escrow, Best Mortgage will credit one-half of its real estate sales commission to YOU. This money can be used to help pay your loan closing costs - saving you thousands of dollars!

If you are a "Do It Yourself" homebuyer and you'd like to have Steve Tytler represent you when you are ready to make a purchase offer, please contact us as soon as possible: Call our office at (425) 746-1310 or email Steve: Steve@BestMortgage.com. As we said above, Steve's time is extremely limited and he may not be available to represent you on short notice.

Good luck finding the home of your dreams!

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