How a Realtor Can Help Sellers

Your home likely is the largest financial asset in which you’ve ever invested and now it’s time to make that investment pay. Hiring a professional Realtor to help you with this significant transaction is the best way to ensure that you’ll get top-dollar for the house and the widest marketing exposure possible. Additionally, your Realtor is a professional who will organize and coordinate the significant amount of administrative work, and help minimize your vulnerability to certain liabilities.

A Realtor has a fiduciary duty to work as an advocate on your behalf, representing your best interests in the real estate sale transaction. This means helping you negotiate the best terms and price for your home sale, and making sure the property disclosure requirements applicable to your real estate transaction have been met.

• Pricing: A professional Realtor can help you avoid the pitfalls associated with either under pricing or overpricing your home, it’s his or her job to stay abreast of changing market conditions and the constantly shifting supply and demand factors that can affect your sale price. Realtors also can provide you with a professional comprehensive market analysis (CMA), which compares the list price and final sale price of like properties in the neighborhood.
  
• Marketing: Your home won’t sell itself. The complex and time-consuming job entails much more than simply planting a for-sale sign in the yard and hosting the occasional open house. Hiring a professional Realtor can provide you with the best and broadest marketing effort available. A primary tool employed by Realtors is a cooperative arrangement known as the Multiple Listing Service (MLS), which combines and markets virtually all of the for-sale home listings in a given area or region. Typically, access to the MLS is restricted to licensed real estate professionals. A listing agreement likely would include a number of additional marketing services provided by your Realtor including the yard sign and flyers, newspaper advertisement, Internet exposure, outreach to the brokerage community and various showings.
  
• Professional services: The Realtor manages the entire the transaction from beginning to end by helping you set the best asking price, and prescreening prospective homebuyers by weeding out the hopefuls and reeling in the serious homebuyers who are financially capable of closing on the transaction. Additionally, your Realtor will collect and evaluate purchase offers, handle negotiations and close the deal. A Realtor also can help you navigate the complex state-mandated disclosure laws that require home sellers to disclose certain types of information about their home that could impact the property’s appeal and a homebuyer’s decision to buy it.