When have you ever heard someone say, “buying a home without a real estate agent as my advocate was easy?” Alternatively, have you heard someone who did a For Sale By Owner talk about the time, contracts, and headache of trying to DIY it? In the housing market, there will always be DIY types — people who want to put a For Sale sign in their yard without an agent or the person who wants to remodel their own home with no prior construction experience. That is their prerogative and right to choose how they want to manage the largest financial asset that they own. You can buy or sell a home without a real estate agent, but why would you want to?
Fortune Magazine published a great article on the NAR Settlement and its implications. It states – “Historically, nearly 90% of homebuyers have opted to work with a real estate agent or broker. That figure is unlikely to change.”*
With 9 out of 10 home buyers using a real estate agent, there must be a reason why!
When you hire an attorney to draft your family trust or go to the dentist to tell you what is wrong with your teeth, it isn’t because you can’t find information online about what you *could* do. Sure, you can find a boiler-plated trust document online or search MayoClinic for hours about what is wrong, but you want the professional, the expert, the person who has invested time and energy into being the best, to ask them what is going on.
Likewise, when you buy or sell a house, you call on the professional: your REALTOR.
The role of an agent includes offering “insights into property values, taxes, regulations, and zoning laws while overseeing thorough due diligence processes”, acting as “a skilled negotiators, ensuring that their clients submit the most competitive bids for their dream home”, and being “crucial advisors for their clients, providing ongoing support, answering queries, and offering guidance as people confront the challenges and delights of homeownership.”*
You make the phone call to your agent when you are helping your parents move into assisted living and need help selling their home; you make the phone call to your agent when your family is growing and you need extra bedrooms; you make the phone call to your agent when you get an exciting new job opportunity out of state and need to move quickly.
