Are you thinking about selling your house and wondering if you still need a realtor in today’s market? In this video, I’m going to walk you through the roles a realtor plays when you sell your house. By outlining all the different hats that a realtor wears throughout the transaction, you can decide whether you really need one or not.
Consultants And Teachers
While many people think realtors just open doors and show houses, the truth is we wear many hats throughout the transaction. We take on a lot of different responsibilities, and opening doors is one of the smallest parts of the job. One of the hats we wear is as your consultant and teacher.
Are you making the right move? Have you considered all aspects of your investment? Better yet, how does the home selling process even work? Before you even get your home listed for sale, you need to understand the market, the process, and how it even works. We already understand the market, and we need you to as well—because it’s not my house for sale, it’s yours.
The reason we call ourselves your consultant and teacher is that we need to make sure that you’re educated throughout the entire process of the transaction. Our job is to make sure that you stay out of trouble. But if you know the market front to back and know exactly what’s going on, maybe you don’t need a realtor.
Home Designer & Marketing Specialist
The next hat we wear is that of your home designer. If you actually want to sell your home for top dollar, we need to make it look good. That means getting rid of all the junk, clutter, and anything else that shouldn’t be there in the first place.
After I design your house and make the house look good, I then put on my third hat as your marketing specialist. Selling your house is a lot more than putting a sign in the front yard and listing it on the MLS. We need to market it correctly, including getting cool videos and pictures, that will create a buzz to get you top dollar.
Tour Guide & Negotiator
Once we get your home marketed and showings start happening, that’s when I put on my fourth hat: your home’s personal tour guide. It’s not just my job to get your home sold, it’s my job to make people fall in love with it. That includes not just knowing about your house, but also the local community it’s located in.
Your buyers are going to have questions about shopping, jobs, and local schools. It’s my job to make sure that they get the information they need. If I do a good enough job, we’ll get an offer. But before we accept the offer, I have to put on my fifth hat as your skilled negotiator. As a real estate agent, my job is to put the other side in a headlock to get the price and terms that you want. If not, we don’t do the deal. So once you go under contract, you’re in escrow. Congratulations!
Therapist & Transaction Facilitator
When you’re in escrow, we’re still not there yet. This is when I put on my sixth hat as your therapist—because you’re going to need it. Buying and selling real estate is stressful, and moving is even more stressful. It’s my job to make and keep those stress levels at a minimum. Things are going to happen in a transaction that you’re not going to like. There’s going to be bumps in the road, but my job is to keep those at bay and keep them at a minimum.
This leads us to our final hat as your transaction facilitator. Now we have to take your deal all the way to closing. For example, did you know there are over 80 pages of documents to sign in the state of California? Did you know that there are a minimum of four inspections in every single home sale? On top of that, someone has to follow up with the buyer’s financing, the title company, and the escrow company before we finalize the transaction. It’s our job to facilitate the transaction from beginning to end to make sure that everybody’s doing their job so you don’t have anything to worry about.
Is A Realtor Right For You?
Selling real estate doesn’t have to be stressful and time-consuming, and it definitely doesn’t have to be a full-time job. That’s what you hire us to do. Deciding whether you need to hire a real estate agent is 100% depending on your personal situation.
I hope this helped you understand the role your real estate agent plays when you sell a house so that you can determine whether or not you need one. If you’re thinking about selling your house, have any other additional questions about the process, or you want an agent who can wear all of the hats that we talked about, feel free to reach out to me. I’ll be happy to connect!
