Why Hire a Real Estate Agent?
Once you’ve decided to sell your home, the next question you will ask yourself will be ‘Do I really need to hire a Real Estate Agent’?
Hiring a professional, licensed Real Estate Agent can make an incredible difference to your experience selling your house, as well as the sale price you are able to secure. Take a look at the advantages of using a Real Estate Agent to help you sell your home:
Take a look at the advantages of using a Real Estate Agent to help you sell your home:
Agents are objective experts
Selling your home is no easy task. It involves a myriad of legal documents and processes, not to mention a whole other language of real estate terminology. A real estate agent will help you navigate all of this and avoid mistakes that could cost you time and money. Your agent will also be an objective resource – someone who is professionally trained to analyse the situation and advise you without getting tied up in emotional factors. Selling your home can be emotional on an personal level and it can be easy for your personal emotions to influence your decisions, such as how much to list your house for, and what sale price you should accept.
Professional networks
Advertising your house through websites, newspapers and other media can certainly get some results. However, adding to this an agent’s professional network of contacts and potential buyers will really get your property out there in the market. These kinds of contacts also mean that your agent can make sure that high-quality potential buyers come to inspect your property, rather than the untargeted results from open advertising only.
Someone to handle the negotiations
Negotiating the sale of a house can be tough. Unless you are a trained negotiator, with recent experience regularly selling houses, an experienced real estate agent will be much better equipped to handle the difficult negotiation process and secure the best price and terms possible. In most cases, you will go for many years in between selling property, meaning not only are you not practiced in negotiation but also that laws and regulations may very well have changed in this time. Having an expert negotiator to handle all this for you in invaluable.
Terminology
Like any industry, Real Estate has its own language of jargon and terminology. Agents are categorized as either a seller’s agent or a buyer’s agent:
Seller’s agent or seller’s representative: this is the Real Estate Agent hired by the seller of the property usually under the terms of a listing contract, and they represent the interests of the seller in the transaction.
Buyer’s agent of buyer’s representative: on the other hand, the buyer’s agent is hired by the buyer and will represent their interests. They may be paid directly by the buyer with a set fee, or may be part of split commission with the seller on the sale of the property.
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