Do You Need a Real Estate Agent to Buy or Sell a Home?

One of the most important decisions anyone will make during their lifetime is the decision to buy a home, or sell a home. This cannot be approached in a cavalier fashion because so much is riding on it: tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. For most people, this is the biggest financial decision they will ever make. Invariably, the question arises, whether to go it alone or work with a real estate agent.

Buying a Home - Do It Yourself

If you choose to buy a home yourself without the aid of a real estate agent, be prepared to do a lot of work and to engage with the professionals you’ll need to determine if a home is worth the asking price, to determine if it has any defects or problems you should know about, to get a mortgage, and to finalize the contract. This means that to buy a home you’ll need to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan by a loan officer at a bank, hire a home inspector and a property appraiser, and hire a real estate attorney.

Selling a Home – Do It Yourself

Selling a home can be even more complicated than buying a home, especially in a slow housing market. ‘Do it yourself’ can be problematic here, for one good reason: marketing. When selling a home, your real estate agent’s primary purpose is getting your home seen by potential buyers. This requires marketing, and marketing isn’t as easy as it seems. The real estate agent is acutely qualified to market your home to buyers and to the real estate agents who represent them. And marketing is about more than boosting visibility, it’s about boosting the desirability of the property, and that includes pricing, staging the home, and content that both shows and describes the property in the best possible light. This is what a real estate agent does for a living, so it makes sense that she knows what she is doing. If you opt to go it alone, plan to do a lot of research on what it takes to sell a home quickly and at the right price.

Finding a Real Estate Agent

Unless you are dead set on doing it yourself, the best move for someone looking to sell a home or buy a home is to work with a real estate agent. Once this decision is made, keep in mind that any real estate agent you consider should be a member of the National Association of Realtors. This means that he or she (in theory, at least) abides by the Realtor Code of Ethics. You can also find a real estate agent or agency to represent Bay Area real estate on MLSListings.com. Always use third-party sources to learn more about them; cross-referencing specific real estate agents on ratings web sites like Yelp and Angie’s List can help you find the right one.



Press Contact:
MLSListings, Inc.
www.mlslistings.com
350 Oakmead Parkway
2nd Floor
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
Call: 408.874.0200
FAX: 408.874.1200