Chattanooga Realtors

Many buyers either discount the value of selecting the right agent or worse decide they do not want to work with an agent. Per the National Association of Realtors, over 85% of the home sold in practically every market are sold via a real estate agent/broker. The majority of homes for sale are listed with an agent, so in most instances you will be working with at least one agent. Likewise, more often than not FSBO listings typically eventually get listed with an agent, most likely due to either unrealistic pricing or the lack of experience or marketing budget to market the home properly.

Selecting Your Real Estate Agent

Buyers Agents
A buyers agent is not actually paid by the buyer, but by the seller. The sellers agent splits the commission on the home by offering typically half to a buyer’s agent. Also most will not or cannot give the commission to the buyer instead of agent nor reduce the price by the percentage offered to a buyer’s agent. Most listing brokerages will not allow the listing contract to be altered namely because changing it back if the deal falls though and it is a poorly accepted business practice in the industry. Also a respectable builder will also not reduce the price of a home sold with out a buyer’s agent because it might effect future appraisals with an agent and by doing so would create a bad rap in the local Realtor community which generally represents about 75% of a builders business.

So unless you just do not want a subjective professional to guide you through the process, there really are not a lot of rational reasons why you would use a buyer’s agent.

A good agent can:

1. Pull comparable homes sold directly from the MLS to obtain an more accurate value of a property.
2. Negotiate on your behalf. An agent with experience is a must and one that has previous experience working with or for a builder is a plus. These agents have in depth training on how to negotiate and rest assured if your buying a new home the builder’s agent is shrewd in getting the best price for the builder.
3. Prepare the contract in the most favorable way for you, their client.
4. Help avoid common pitfalls and leaving unnecessary money at the closing table.
5. Recommend needed professionals such as a loan officer, title agent, insurance agent, and home inspector.

Sellers Agents
With over 85% of the market, per NAR, purchasing a home with an agent, using a seller’s agent just makes sense if you want to maximize your home’s exposure and realizing the most amount of equity possible. In our experience most FSBO get low-balled and expect to the owners to discount their home by 6% or more because they are not having to pay an agent. So save yourself the headache of calls from unqualified buyers and low-ballers. Also consider that NAR also reports that home that sell with a agent realize 15% more equity in their home. Saving 6% to lose 9% doesn’t really make that much sense does it? A recent study by GolfGuy.TV found that sellers who did not use a real estate agent sold their home for on average 18% less.

A good agent can:
1. Maximize your home exposure. Always select an agent or team with a solid web presence. While other methods still work to some degree. Upwards of 90% of home buyers use search for their homes online and if they do not have a relationship with an agent, select an select their buyer’s agent online too. To put simply, if an agent has a good online presence, they are working with a lot of buyers.
2. Negotiate on your behalf to get top dollar. Again, agents with prior new home experience are pros at getting top dollar for their listings.
3. Explain all terms on offers to ensure that owners are aware of all terms requested and reject those that are not suitable.
4. Help avoid common pitfalls and leaving unnecessary money at the closing table.
5. Coordinate the whole process to ensure that selling your home provides a little inconvenience to you as possible.