Why it’s worthwhile to hire a real estate agent

Daniel Smyth

July 2009

I recently had a conversation with a man looking for information about the real estate market, competition, interest rates, listing price vs selling price, sale duration, and renovating to sell vs not renovating to sell. I knew that this person was questioning me so that he could sell his home privately, so I asked him if that was his intention. He responded by saying, “There is so much information available online, why would I need an agent?” I responded by saying,“for the very reasons that you are calling me now.”

To begin, there are many factors to consider when pricing a home. Where would you find recent sale and market information to determine the asking price? Agents will inform you of this and will guide you toward making informed selling decisions, and can provide you with an opinion of the estimated sale price of a property that you wish to purchase, saving you from paying too much for it.

An agent can make suggestions to help you save time and resources by referring you to a network of professionals that you could potentially use to buy or sell with. These include notaries, property inspectors, mortgage brokers, land surveyors, building/soil engineers, and renovators/movers. Even if you have a successfully accepted promise to purchase in hand, there are hurdles – inspection and mortgage – to overcome. Furthermore, I represent one network of buyers, but when combined with other agents, we represent hundreds of potential buyers.

Furthermore, an agent should be better at negotiating the sale process than you because the emotional aspects of the sale transaction are removed. As well, purchase agreements can be very long and complicated, requiring knowledge of the Civil Code and the Brokerage Act. Mistakes are less likely to occur with someone who works in the field of real estate on a daily basis.

Post sale problems are also usually managed by agents. Even the smoothest transaction can come back to haunt you. A good agent will not leave you once the Act of Sale has occurred because integral to the success of an agent is having satisfied customers with whom to conduct future business. Consider referrals as well.

Hire someone who knows more about selling real estate than you do because it is difficult and time-consuming to research this topic enough to do a good job yourself. Consider the advertisements to produce, phone calls to receive, questions to answer, research to conduct, and showings to perform just to find that serious buyer. Now balance these against the modern demands of family and career, not to mention the cost associated with marketing your property. It is tougher than you think, because there is lots of “fluff” to weed through before finally selling, which could take months.

There are many other reasons to use an agent for selling or buying that are beyond the scope of this article. For more information, please call: Daniel Smyth, Affiliated Real Estate Agent, Groupe Sutton-Clodem Inc., 514-941-3858