With all the turmoil that exists in the housing market, you need all the help you can get to achieve the best purchase or sale and this makes for some very good reasons to use a real estate agent. You could go it alone and that route is certainly worth consideration but before making that decision, here are some reasons to use a real estate agent.
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1. Market Knowledge
One of the top reasons to use a real estate agent is their unparalleled market knowledge. And as professionals, they will have access to information that we lay people – buyers and sellers - won’t be privy to. Buying or selling any property with an agent will be able to help clients make a much more informed decision about their investments.
2. Negotiation Skills
Not everybody has honed their negotiation skills like an agent has. In many cases, people regard negotiation as confrontation or conflict, and although they may be very savvy business people, will end up not being able to successfully negotiate things like terms of sales with prospective buyers or sellers. Let the professionals do the talking – they know their subject well.
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3. Seller Buyer Accountability
One of the sensible reasons to use a realtor is to ensure that the buyer or seller on the other side of the deal can be held accountable in the event that things don’t go according to plan. There are many crooks and cowboys out there, but a professional agency can go a long way in making sure things are kept on the straight and narrow. It is much more difficult for slick con artists to continue with bad or illegal business practice when there is an entire agency backing you up.
4. Tips on House Readiness
Agents will immediately be able to assess why your house, office or property is not getting much attention. And they will be able to suggest a few changes that will make a big difference in getting the sale that everybody wants. The advice from a real estate agent about removing clutter and personal items, fragrant flowers, opening up a few nooks and crannies in the home that owners won’t necessarily have thought of, could end up being make or break for you.
5. Industry Referrals
Estate agents have a solid address book, full of reputable contractors used in the building, electrical and contracting industry. If you need to have a few things fixed before your property goes on the market or need a reputable electrician to sort out your certificates, your real estate agent will have listings of people they trust and work with to refer to you. This alone is one of the fantastic reasons to engage a real estate agent.
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6. Dealing with the Red Tape
Complicated bank rules, legal requirements, endless documents, certified items in triplicate, extra signatures and never ending reams of paperwork, can make the whole sale process an overwhelming one for buyers and sellers doing it on their own. Estate agents will fill in all the necessary paperwork, prepare, sign and certify documents needed and submit them, keep you up to date and follow up with registration of mortgages. When it comes to important investments, this is one of the financial and legal reasons for employing estate agents.
7. Reading People
Real estate agents need to be able to have a good rapport with people, and after being in industry for some time, will immediately be able to identify the crooks from the cowboys, whiles unsuspecting clients may not have the ability to do so. This is a skill that can only be learnt from experience and an agent may be able to ascertain what kind of people they are dealing with from the start, helping their clients smoothing out any public relations issues on their behalf.
8. Connections
Estate agents know everybody, and have connections in so many different sectors, due to the amount of people they see and meet every day. This kind of networking comes in particularly handy when you move to a new suburb or town, because they can help you find schools, doctors, building contractors and the best place to enjoy a Pina Colada with a view in your new surroundings, taking a lot of the initial settling in stress off you.
9. Takes Care of All the Drama
People are funny creatures; they don’t always do what they say they are going to do, and when there is money involved things can get very complicated very quickly. First the bank will lend you the money, then they won’t, then the buyer gets cold feet, then they change their mind again. Things are forgotten, incomplete and change every 5 minutes, making it incredibly stressful for any buyer or seller, but for the agent it’s all taken in their stride. If you ever needed more reasons to hire an estate agent, this is it.
10. The Ability to See Potential
So your agent pulls up in front of a dilapidated house in the middle of nowhere, and you are wondering if they even read your initial requirements of ‘’house in the countryside, safe, wide open spaces, close to amenities and schools, medium budget.’’ But once your agent has walked you through, showing you a few changes you can make at an affordable cost, you can end up saving a pot load of money and finding your dream house all in one go. Estate agents know property!
Of course, using an agent is going to cost more than selling your house by yourself, but one of the other key reasons to use a real estate agent is that there should be less risk and less effort on your part. Do you use a real estate agent when selling, buying or renting?
