Buyer questions, answered plainly.

No, but the economics changed in 2024 and it is worth understanding. You now sign a written agreement with your agent stating their fee before they show you anything. Sellers can still contribute toward it, and in most transactions they do, but it is no longer advertised in the MLS. Which means you negotiate it, and that is better than not knowing it existed.

We agree the fee in writing before we start. In most transactions here the seller side still covers it and the buyer pays nothing out of pocket, and when it does not cover all of it you will know that number before you have fallen for a house rather than at the closing table. Ask me on the first call.

From the first conversation to keys, sixty to ninety days is normal. Cash is faster. A house with a title question, an insurance problem, or a seller who still needs somewhere to go is slower.

Because they pull a feed on a delay, and because a listing stays visible while it is under contract. By the time a good house on a good block shows up as new to you, it has often already been seen. That is not a conspiracy, it is a lag.

Sometimes, and less often than people hope. Off-market comes from conversation rather than from a database, so it depends on who happens to be thinking about selling on the street you want. Worth asking. Not a strategy on its own.

Yes. Before the first showing, not after the inspection. The zone and the elevation shape your insurance, your lender's requirements and your resale, and they can move a house out of your budget entirely. It takes ten minutes and it changes what you go and see.

There is no percentage, and anybody who gives you one is guessing. A renovated house on a quiet block with two other offers is a different problem from a project nobody has walked in three weeks. What decides it is how many people want this specific house on this specific block, and that is knowable. We work it out house by house.

Then you have information, which is what you paid for. Almost nothing found in an old house here is unfixable. What matters is the number, who pays it, and whether it changes what the house is worth to you. You can ask for a repair, ask for a credit, renegotiate the price, or walk. Bad inspections end deals far less often than people expect.

Your agreement says what happens next. Usually you can ask the seller to come down, bring the difference in cash, challenge the appraisal with better comparables, or terminate under the financing terms. On an unusual property a low appraisal often means the appraiser had nothing good to compare it with.

I have no idea yet, and anybody who answers this in the first five minutes is selling you something. It depends on whether you want a porch conversation or a courtyard, how you feel about living on a parade route, and what you are actually willing to trade. The neighborhood pages go through each one honestly. Then we talk.

It varies by block far more than by neighborhood, and the honest answer is that the city has real crime and most people here live ordinary lives. Do not take my reassurance for it. NOPD publishes data by district and the public safety dashboards track it over time. Look at the numbers for the specific area, then go walk it after dark.

Almost certainly. The streetcar is beautiful and slow, biking is genuinely good on ground this flat, and a handful of people manage without. Most do not. Off-street parking is worth real money Uptown and in the Garden District.