How An Agent Helps A Seller

A real estate transaction can be extremely complex. There are numerous legal issues that a seller must be made aware of. Without proper counseling, the real transaction has the potential to become a very trying experience, and can possibly be very costly to a seller.

You might be thinking that selling your house is going to be a piece of cake, but real estate has probably gotten a lot more complicated since you purchased the house. In most cases it is in your best interest to hire a real estate agent. Even if you’ve seen cases where people have sold their home on their own without any problem, it may have just been sheer luck that it didn’t turn into a total disaster. Failure to disclose certain things about the condition of the property may result in a major lawsuit if anything goes wrong for the buyer. Some things that must be disclosed may be problems you are not even aware of. Real estate contracts in some states have gotten extremely complicated, and in some instances (depending on the state), may be thirty or forty pages long.

A good real estate agent will guide you through the entire process from beginning to end. At your first meeting they will probably suggest a price range that they think your house would sell for. Keep in mind, just because they don’t agree with you, doesn’t mean they don’t know what they are doing. Most sellers have a sentimental attachment to their house. It may be hard for you to accept that all that work you did on your yard doesn’t make your house worth $30,000 more than your neighbor who hasn’t planted anything, or that deck that you spent $10,000 on only adds a thousand dollars to your home’s value. The agent should bring evidence to back up his or her suggestion. If all of the other 3 bedroom townhouses in the neighborhood are selling for $130,000, yours isn’t going to sell for $160,000 because you keep it so much nicer. On the other side, if you DON’T take care of it, it could sell for a lot less money.

The Home Selling Process
What Questions Should You Ask An Agent?