In a thread at Savingadvice, someone asked “Why do we need Real Estate Agents?”  I had to really ponder that question.  There were many pros and cons answers.  And MANY more answers I hadn’t even considered personally until someone had mentioned it.

Of course the traditional answer is to help you find a home you.  They know neighborhoods, traffic patterns, schools, etc better than say someone moving there would.  Also RE agents understand how the market is behaving at that given time.  So if you are a seller, they can help you sell it. 

 When we sold our condo in SD, a realtor came and said “I’m happy to do a comparative market analysis because even if you try to For Sale By Owner, 95% of people end up using a realtor.”  Hence the idea was that many people try to sell their homes on their own without success and turned to an agent anyway.

Now these past 5 years might have been an quirk where homes were sold before they were listed.  Homes sold like hot cakes!   But in an average market where homes sit 90 days, realtors are used to help stage, present, and be an outside perspective when pricing and selling a home, or even buying a home.

Granted you pay a lot.  So the original poster said “Why do you need to pay so much for something you can do yourself??”  Here are some interesting answers.

1.    Safety – do you really want to have random people calling and coming over to see your house?  Do you trust them alone in your house if you have a lock box and give them the code?  What if they are coming to steal stuff?  Also brought up an elderly woman living alone, with today’s world do you want your 70 year old mom standing waiting for some man to walk into the house where she could be hurt?  Hence RE agents are putting themselves on the line instead.

    I have to say I hadn’t thought that much about it until it was mentioned.  NOW I would definitely tell my mom, she needs a realtor. I would feel very worried if she listed her home on Craigslist and had numerous calls from people and was home alone while people came to the door.

2.      Convience – do you have the time to field phone calls, stay at home for appointments, and wait around for people who never show up?  RE agents do this.  Or if you have a buyer’s agent they do all the calling and set up the appointments and drive you to each place.  So you are placing a premium on your time.

   Another convience factor, having a realtor in case you’ve already moved and the house hasn’t sold.  How will the house be shown if you aren’t in the city?  What do you do?

   Or are moving from another city and you need help finding great school districts.  Or safe neighborhoods. A  realtors reccomendations can really help.  Plus on a home buying trip she’ll have mapped out say 20 homes to consider.

3.      Experience - the thing is especially the first time, even reading everything on the internet it is very difficult to have all the knowledge of how to buy a home.  How to write an offer, how much to offer, how much to list at, etc.  

     But another poster said, you go to someone with experience when you need help with fixing your house, fixing your car, etc.  So why not hire someone with experience to help you with a process you might only undergo 2-3x in your life?  Do you really have the time to gain the breadth of knowledge?

    These were the main points I hadn’t considered for hiring a RE agent.  I knew convience was a big deal, but I had no idea it could be so time demanding.  Calling buyers back, setting times, them not showing up, etc.  It could easily affect your job performance.

    And I knew definitely about experience.  We really needed help when we purchased our first condo.  We were wayyy more savvy the second time, but the first time we are still eternally grateful to our realtor for showing us everything, explaining her reasons behind certain decisions.  It really made a difference the second time. 

  But the safety issues I hadn’t even considered.  But now I’m going to completely keep that in mind when my mom talks to me about selling her homes.  I would be extremely upset if she tries to do it herself.  With her and my 80 grandmother occupying the other house, it’s well worth the 6% commission to make sure they don’t have to meet strangers.