How can we find an agent who is familiar with not only the areas we are interested in but also the type of house? Is it important to have a buyers agent in the inner Houston market or is it like Los Angeles and essentially irrelevant.

Hi Paul, \nIn the day and age of the internet there\'s not much you can\'t really do on your own realistically. However, having an agent can help you save a lot of time and offer guidance through all the nuances that aren\'t as easily googled. Har offers you filters to search for realtors that specifically only work with buyers, if that\'s what you\'re looking for in an agent. A big part of home buying is the financing aspect of the process, and I started in the industry through home lending and would be more than happy to help you if your\'e still on the search for a home.

I made an offer to a property and the agent replied they will not lower the price and also no finish allowances. The seller will only pay title policy???? is this normal in TX real estate market? I am a first time home buyer and lots of things are really new to me.

In Texas TREC has created a representation agreement that you can essentially negotiate the terms your broker\'s commission (remember your agreements are with the broker not the agent). Mathew stated the \"Current general\" standard for how commission is written out in the agreements. However, it\'s a \"Does the chicken come before the egg\" type of overall picture in who is REALLY paying the commission. In a resale transaction, I would say yes the buyer is paying for all real estate brokerage commissions that was negotiated on the sellers side. I don\'t know any well informed seller who hasn\'t considered the true costs of selling a property and that includes the costs of representation (real estate commission), and because of that most sellers have a general number of what they need to net, anything over is just extra. So in my opinion of the overall transaction I\'d say the person who is bringing all the money to the table for the transaction is paying for everything and it\'s just divided out accordingly to other agreements that the buyer isn\'t privy to see.