Why Do I Need A Real Estate Agent If I’m Selling A Home in Marin? Part 3
I started this a few days ago, trying to answer the question, why use a Realtor® if I’m selling a home in Marin County?
Here’s reason No. 3:
Service is everything when it comes to selling your home. A good, professional Realtor© will provide you with every service you can think of, as well as a number you probably didn’t even know were necessary. This is a partial list of what a good agent does when they list a home, whether it is a Tiburon waterfront mansion, a Mill Valley duplex, or a fixer upper in Corte Madera.
A good agent will help you prepare your home for sale by recommending what work needs to be done prior to sale, and will advise you on what will give you the highest return on investment. They’ll identify service providers that you can hire, such as painters, landscapers, and stagers; in our case, it is professionals that we recommend because we have used them many times, and we know they will deliver.
They’ll advise you on what inspections to do prior to sale, and provide inspectors to hire, so that once you’re in contract with a buyer, you’re sale price is protected from additional, potentially damaging price negotiation.
They’ll provide professional photography, professionally written copy, and well-designed marketing materials that get a buyer’s attention. They’ll develop a marketing plan unique to your goals and your property, place the ads, and aggressively market it through their broker network, both the internal one at their brokerage firm, and the county-wide broker network.
They’ll hold regular open houses for both brokers and buyers. They will quickly return other agent’s phone call for information, send out disclosure packets, monitor showings via the Internet, follow up with agents who view the property, and deliver feedback and showing data to you.
They will stay in touch with you on a regular basis, honestly tell you what potential buyers are saying, and advise you on how to use that to better market your home.
They’ll negotiate aggressively and intelligently on your behalf when an offer comes in, advise you on how to counter offer, and get you the maximum price. They’ll protect that price through escrow, as buyers conduct their inspections, and carefully walk you through the myriad of detailed paperwork that is the modern real estate transaction in Marin County.
And when it’s closed, they’ll stay in touch to help you with whatever other needs you may have regarding real estate.
That’s how we do it, anyway.There’s a lot more - city inspections, handling multiple offers, etc. - but this gets the basics.
