Why Do I Need a Realtor?

When it comes time to sell your home, you may contemplate whether or not to hire a Realtor. Since much of what Realtors do happens on their own time, many home sellers are unaware of the sheer amount of time and effort that goes into the sale of every home. Not to say that you can't sell your home without a real estate agent - you can - but make an educated decision first by understanding exactly what a Realtor does to sell your home.

1. Pre-Listing Activities: A lot happens before your house even hits the market.

•  Pre-list presentation where a real estate agent visits your home and explains their services, their sales record and their plan to get your home sold. To prepare for this presentation, your realtor researches comps in your area, your home's market value and the sales activity in your area for the previous 12 to 18 months.

2.  Listing Appointment Presentation:

• This presentation gives the realtor an opportunity to bring you up to speed on what the market situation is in your area so that you can make an educated decision about pricing your home. They offer their credentials, explain their company's profile and experience. They provide you with the CMA (comparative market analysis) that they created, discuss your selling goals, go over marketing strategy and explain any listing agreements and clauses.

3.  After You've Listed with a Realtor:

• Now the real work begins and it starts with the realtor reviewing your title information, obtaining houses plans and room sizes, taking photos and verifying current mortgage information. Your realtor is in the research phase which involves collecting tax, utility, and county information. They will also place signs in your yard, have keys made for the lock box and explain the benefits of a home warranty if that's something you're interested in. Your property with listing information, description and photos are entered into the Multiple Listings Database. 

4. Marketing Your Home

• This includes a wide range of activities that vary across Realtors and their companies. For the most part, all Realtors do a combination of Internet, mail and print marketing. I personally, add listings to my website, to Trulia, Zillow and other online real estate sites and update my listings on my social media pages such as Facebook and Linked In. This also includes word of mouth marketing within their agency and to any buyers they come in contact with. They holding showings and open houses and create virtual tours so that online buyers can view your property from the web.

5. Review Offers and Complete Contract Paperwork:

• Your realtor will review all incoming offers, ensure that the potential buyer is qualified to purchase your home and help you in making an educated decision about counter offers. Your realtor will manage every aspect of the offering process from faxing contracts to buyers and sellers to ensuring money is placed in the escrow account. There is a great deal of work involved in this stage of the process and you can review a more complete list at InsideIncline.com.

6.  Before Closing:

• At this point, your realtor is tracking the process of your buyer's loan to ensure there are no hang-ups. This is also the time to schedule home inspections and home appraisals. A lot of minro challenges may arise during the pre-closing weeks and your Realtor works diligently to put out fires and ensure that both the buyer, the seller and the lender is ready to close on time.

7. Closing: 

• Your realtor will be busy in the days leading up to your closing guaranteeing that all contracts have been signed, resolving any title issues and scheduling the closing date, time and location. At the actual closing, most of the work is finished and your Realtor will answer final questions, get sigantures and handle the filing of your closing paperwork.

Although this list in no way comprises all of a realtor's activities during a listing and sale, it helps to give you a snapshot of the process and a deeper understanding of how much time is actually devoted to every listing.

As an East Lansing Realtor, I can provide you will all of these services if you're interest in buying or selling a home in the East Lansing, Okemos or Greater Lansing areas. In addition to the aforementioned Realtor activities, I take a very strategic approach to marketing all of my listings online and ensuring that my buyers and sellers have access to all of the information and marketing that they need for a successful sale or purchase.

Combined with my personal knowledge of real estate transactions, I utilized a survey created by the Orlando Regional Realtor Association, which was conducted to educate the public about the services and functions of a Realtor. You can view their comprehensive list here.