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Better access/More convenience
Real estate agents have easy access to all the properties listed by agents. This is what they do for a living – act as a liaison between buyers and sellers. Therefore, agents representing buyers as well as sellers know exactly what needs to be done to get the deal together. The job comes with a lot of requirements. While representing a buyer, the agent has to track down the perfect home that meets the buyer’s criteria, contact the seller’s agents, make appointments for viewing, etc. Similarly, when the agent is representing the seller, it involves making appointments for the interested buyers, clear inquiries, etc. It is also likely that potential buyers move on if you don’t follow up on them quickly enough. To do all of this on your own becomes exhausting and almost impossible to do when you have your life and job to focus on.
Negotiating on your own is tricky
More often than not people believe that it is better and more transparent to have the buyer and seller negotiate directly. This might be true in an ideal scenario, where the buyer and seller are reasonable people who wouldn’t let their emotion cloud their judgment while making the deal, which is not the case 99.99% of the time. There could be many things that a potential buyer doesn’t like about the house and would like to convey to the seller for any price adjustments. This could potentially hurt the seller’s sentiments and create bad blood between the two, which could kill the deal. Herein steps your real estate agent as your savior. It is an agent’s job to be a messenger between the buyer and seller and do tough conversations without making things get too personal.
Hard to handle contracts
Buying or selling a home involves the offer to purchase contract, which is there to protect you and ensure that you can declare the deal null if the conditions you asked for aren’t met. For whatever reason, failure to set the correct conditions about financing, home inspection, or anything else that you deemed necessary when the contract was being drafted can cause you legal troubles or your money. An experienced real estate agent deals with such contracts on a daily basis. He is well aware of the conditions that should be used, how to safely remove them once they are met and how to use the contract to protect you as a buyer or seller.
Agents can’t lie
This doesn’t mean that they don’t have the ability to lie. However, the repercussions they would have to face if they do are far more than for a buyer or seller. A licensed real estate agent under an agency agreement is bound by license law to act in their client’s best interest and not his/her own. This means that if you find that your agent was lying to you, you have the right to go to court with proof that your agent has failed to uphold his fiduciary duties. On the other side, when a buyer or seller work directly, they can seek legal counsel but it isn’t much you can do if you found out that you have been duped about multiple offers or the home’s condition because the buyer and seller are both expected to act in his or best interest. Suppose such a situation happens, then having a lawyer on retainer any time you potentially buy or sell a house could cost you far more than an agent’s commission by the time the deal is completed.
Not everyone can save money
Many people don’t hire real estate agents in hope of saving money. However, it is unlikely that both the seller and buyer will benefit from not having to pay commissions. A seller lists his home on the market at a price that is comparable to similar properties in the area. Many of these properties will be sold with the help of an agent, who will receive his or her commission. This means when the house is sold, the seller gets to keep the percentage of the house’s sale price that otherwise might have been paid to the agent. However, a buyer who could purchase the house would not be saving any money, which he/she thought they would by not having an agent involved. This means that unless buyer and seller agree to split the money saved, they can’t both save the commission.
