Tri-Cities Washington Real Estate | The Agent's Value


Selling a home without a real estate agent can seem like an appealing idea to those that haven’t gone through the real estate transaction process. 

That kind of attitude is usually based on the feeling that a real estate transaction is a straightforward process that can be learned and executed quickly by just putting the home on the market. The reality is that a simple transaction is often the rarest kind and every transaction that has twists and turns is best handled by a real estate agent.

An Eye On Commissions
The Agent’s ValueThe simple fact of commissions is that real estate agents often (though perhaps not always) bring in additional value to your property. They know how to market, price, and negotiate the sale of your property, ensuring that you see extra value from your property that you might not see if you were going through the sale yourself. Sometimes, the commission amount can be entirely paid for through these types of efforts.

The speed of the transaction will also be altered and that should go into the math you use to determine whether a commission is worth it. A real estate agent can often speed up the transaction process by navigating twists and turns with experience by knowing what to expect at every stage of the sale. Because of that, extra value is brought to the transaction as a quick sale can help you avoid the cost of remaining in a property you don’t want to be in anymore. This takes you away from the new property you’re aiming for, where you could be building up equity early on.

Contingencies, Clauses, and More
While it is certainly true that real estate transactions follow a predictable series of events and the main events along that path can be generally explained in a short period. However, the devil is always in the details and when an offer comes in on your property that includes a contingency on a home inspection or other action, will you know how to handle it?

Your real estate agent will certainly know how to handle these types of wrinkles in the process and your agent may even be able to negotiate some of those contingencies away or field offers with fewer contingencies with the The Agent’s Valueproper negotiating techniques. Simply put, while the generals of the real estate process can be grasped easily and perhaps even navigated by a novice for a while, the specifics will make the transaction complicated in a way that real estate agents are best suited to handle.

Extra Effort, Extra Value
If you are going through the process of selling your home, chances are that you have a full-time job you use to support that process and support the home itself. Amidst that job, your family obligations, extra activities, relaxation time, and the myriad of events that make up a typical person’s day, marketing an asset valued in the hundreds of thousands of dollars on the side can sometimes be too daunting to cram into an already overloaded day. If only there was someone who would take care of all of that for you…

Some transactions can be done by an owner without a problem, but for the vast majority of cases, a real estate agent can be an extremely valuable resource that oftentimes makes back the cost of hiring the agent in the first place. If something goes awry during the selling process, would you rather have yourself at the helm or an experienced real estate agent?

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