Buy and selling properties is a business between buyer and seller, as a first time buyer, you may wonder why do you even need an agent to help you. Why can't you just go to the seller and ask for it? Or if you are the first time seller, you may ask why you need to pay commission for someone else to sell your property for you, can't you do it by yourself?
Here are a list of reasons why a good agent can be your valuable resource and partner in your real estate pursue:
1. As a seller, you want to sell your home at the best price and in time. A good Realtor knows how much your property worth and how much more the listing price can potentially go up.
2. Selling your property by yourself or on craigslist is an option, however you have to do most of the work, which includes staging your properties for showing, negotiating with buyers, going through escrow process etc. If you have a full time job, a family with kids and you need to sell this house in time for whatever reasons, let a professional help you with it, simple as that.
3. A good agent can help you find better buyers and more serious buyers. Listing your property on craigslist will get you a lot of feedbacks perhaps, however, how do you know if they are serious buyers? Do you want to risk your privacy and security dealing with strangers, or do you prefer leaving it to professionals to handle it?
3. As a buyer, you tend to think you are the only one looking to buy this house, it is not true. An experienced agent will help you understand what the market looks like and what would be your best offer for the dream home and how your offer can stand out among competitions.
4. An experienced agent can help you work through your financial situation to understand what kind of loan are you most likely will get, some will even offers to help you run all of your financial scenarios before you even make an official offer. This will give you the peace of mind knowing whether your loan will fail or not during the process before you even write your offer.
5. The listing you see on the internet only provides public information, there are a lot of private information that you need to know but won't find on the internet listing. An agent will be able to tell you what's the situation of this property by looking in the MLS system. You will know whether your dream house is trust sales, probate sales, currently tenant occupied, a big man-eating dog inside the house, type of ownership that implies what type of offer they prefer. More importantly, the agent will be able to instruct you on how to visit the property (if you decide to go yourself).
6. If you don't have an agent in your buying process, you will have to contact the listing agents for disclosure documents, for seeing the property and for writing the offer. A lot of the time, the listing agent won't have time for that, specially when it comes to reading disclosure documents. Listing agent is most interested in someone who is already ready to make offer, not educating someone who isn't sure yet.
There are many other benefits of working with an agent in your real estate pursue, the most important thing after all is to have an open mind and listen to the professionals. It's true that you are smart, you are great at what you are doing, but if real estate isn't your forte, leave it to the professionals and trust the person who you choose to work with, or don't work with that person.
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