When selling a home, you want to use the experience of an agent to prevent issues (lawsuits), sell your home
for top dollar, and enter into a smooth transaction that does not flip your normal daily routines upside-down.
A real estate transaction is complicated. Buying or selling a home requires disclosure forms, inspection
reports, mortgage documents, insurance policies, deeds, and multi-page government-mandated settlement
statements. An agent acts as your educated guide through this complexity, which helps you avoid delays or
costly mistakes that can turn into tremendous headaches.
The process of selling a home is time consuming. National averages show that homes stay on the market for
an average of 60 days. Once off the market, the closing can take another 60 days to finalize, which means
during this time-frame, your undivided time is needed if an agent is not utilized.
Real estate terms and processes are unique. Like anything else, if you do not know the language or the lingo,
you place yourself at a disadvantage. Experienced agents – that you will face on the other side of the
transaction – will also recognize this. That fact becomes a major disadvantage to someone who does not know
the laws and requirements thoroughly.
An agent is aware of buyers’ taste during current market conditions. This means their evaluation of a
marketing plan and solutions to enhance the value of your home come with experience. This could amount to
thousands of dollars of lost profits, if you fail to understand the buyer’s needs and how to increase the homes
perceived value before it hits the market.
Real Estate Agents provide objectivity. Since a home often symbolizes family, rest, and security, not just four
walls and roof, home selling or buying is often a very emotional undertaking. For most people, a home is the
biggest purchase they’ll ever acquire. Having a concerned, but objective, third party helps you keep focused
on both the business and emotional issues most important to you.
An agent is familiar with writing the detailed contracts involved in a transaction and ensures that they are valid
and legal.
The buyer is often reluctant to share their financial status with the homeowner. Using an agent allows the
buyers to be more relaxed and upfront, preventing the homeowner from wasting their time with buyers who will
not qualify.
You don’t have time to leave your job during the middle of the day to help the buyers arrange financing, nor do
you have expert knowledge of the current loan market. The time and experience needed for a smooth
transaction can be demanding, which is why having a full time agent working for you is ideal.
Negotiations of price can make or break a deal. If you are not confident in negotiating or familiar with the
actual process, then you could easily under-price your home or are taken advantaged of by a smooth talker.
This could cost you thousands!
When people view your home, their level of honesty with the homeowner will not be pure. Instead they will
hold back comments and opinions. This means if a solution could easily be found for their underlying dislike,
you’ll never get to present it because they fail to share it with you. Human nature does not like to offend
people, especially when taste levels differ dramatically, so the interested buyer will remain silent.
You cannot “follow-up” as this will be interpreted as “you must be in a hurry to sell”. By keeping out of the
negotiations or follow-up process, your emotions and desire to sell are never seen. If they are seen and
anxiousness is present, then the buyer has the upper hand during the process, especially if there are only a
handful of offers on the table.
Many times homeowners make needless outlays to improve the property for selling. An agent’s experience
can save capital and reduce expenses by improving only key facets they know affect the buyer. This can
easily save you thousands.
An agent can successfully screen potential buyers. If this is not done, you can waste tremendous amounts of
time showing a home to everyone interested. Also, when the agent shows your home, rather than you, the
amount of time and energy you save by not being involved in the stressful process is worth its weight in gold!
You may accept an insincere offer and then spend months in litigation, to free your property in order to put it
on the market again. You may find buyer and seller personality conflict, thereby losing a good sale. The agent,
as a third party, can diplomatically negotiate and consummate the sale.
The agent will enlist the services of fellow real estate sales people, giving the owner the advantage of his
entire local and national sales market.
An agent has the ability to sell your home with comparison factors. By knowing the market and what homes in
the area have sold for, he or she can use this towards your advantage. Also, when a buyer comes to look at
your house and mentions the other homes they have already looked at or plan to look over, the agent can
easily give them a comparison and educate the buyer on what makes your home ideal.
The agent will price the property to sell at a fair market figure, using figures that agents can only get their
hands on easily. The average owner overprices when they initially place their home on the market, then after
failure to sell, they accept a price far below the market value.