1 Education & Experience, Henry Ford was once quoted in saying. " If I choose to utilize someone else's talents and expertise, that is not to say they are smarter than I but in fact I'm wiser than they for choosing them". Realtors have the Expertise in negotiating the best possible deal for you, Real Estate Agents are professional negotiators with your best interest in the fore front of their incentive. Education combined with experience arms Realtors with tools and skills that are needed to negotiate the best possible price. Lawyers have often said that " A Lawyer that represents themselves has a fool for a client". Exercising this wise counsel, why would a person looking to purchase or sell a home represent themselves if the person whom they were buying or selling was represented by a Professional Negotiator? The National Association of Realtors states that on the average a Realtor will earn for their client 2 and a half times their fees.
2 Agents are Buffers, Real Estate Agents are the ones who make things happen the way you want, Real Estate Agents are the ones that do all those time consuming tasks that it takes to make a transaction complete. Realtors know a home will be shown quite a bit in most cases before a offer is given, Realtors are available and on call almost always to show homes. Realtors know that home buyers will look at several homes before identifying the one they want to call home and are will to spend the countless hours required to research, then show the homes according to the search criteria given.
Once a home is identified someone is needed to schedule the required inspections, help find the best financing, coordinate with a Title co to insure closing is on schedule. These are only a few of the things agents are proficient at in order to complete a closing on time.
3 Property Values. What is the best method of determining the value of a home you want to purchase? Find out what the neighbor paid for their home, hoping they did some very extensive research first. If that is the case and your home is identical in every way, then you have a general idea of what to pay for it. But what if the neighbor used the same method and hoped their neighbor did the needed research. Just think what a powerful tool it is to have a Realtor who does the research and prepares documents showing you maybe your going to be paying much more than necessary. How would it feel to try to sell a home years after your purchase but learn you paid so much for it, that in order to realize the equity you hoped for you need to hang on to it a few more years, these situations don't need to exist and can be prevented with the use of a Realtor.