In a time like this when everything is available a click away, it is possible that you would gain confidence to buy a home using online tools. After all, you can find listings online, contact the owner and find your way to that property. Well, for initial screening these techniques are absolutely fine. But at the later stages of buying a property, you would need an expert’s opinion who is well aware of the real estate market.

Both buyers and sellers, even though they are on separate sides of a fence, aim for the same goal, a sale. One is trying for a steal and the other for top dollar. A realtor acts as a middle man which benefits both sides significantly.

Let us find out why it’s a good idea to consider hiring a real estate agent:

Access and Convenience

A real estate agent’s job is to act as a mediator between the buyer and the seller. This implies that he/she will have access to all the properties listed and they know what exactly have to be done to put the deal together. You will have many specifications and demands from the property you will buy, the agent can track down the homes that meet your criteria. These don’t seem like a difficult set of tasks to do but when you get to it all by yourself you will have to call all the property owners, book an appointment, check each and every home before you shortlist a few. Similarly, if you are planning to sell a house, you have to solicit calls from the interested party, answer all their questions and finally book an appointment, only to find no one shows up.

 Negotiating Skills

Unless you are an attorney, a union representative or a real estate agent, it is highly unlikely that you are a negotiation shark. It is your real estate agent’s job to give you the best deal possible for which they are trained to negotiate well (mostly from experience). And most importantly they have no emotional stake in the outcome that could bias their thinking. A realtor by selling a lot of homes may already know what hidden deals every builder has at that particular point of time.

Contracts need attention to details

There are multiple documents involved in buying and selling a house, and to save money, if you decide to do it yourself some mistakes can cost you as much as a realtor or sometimes even more. Your agent deals with similar papers and contracts on a daily basis and is familiar with which conditions should be used, when they can safely be removed and how to use the contract to protect you, whether you’re buying or selling your home.

Realtors can’t lie

Well maybe they can, but licenced realtors can face a lot of repercussions if they do. Your agent is bound by a common law to a fiduciary relationship. In other words, the agent is bound by license law to act in their clients’ best interest (not his or her own).One would obviously be more comfortable in sharing your personal financial details with a licenced realtor than a private seller who is under no legal obligation to keep it confidential.Another important factor that must be considered is if a fraud is committed by the opposite party getting legal help is going to cost you much more than the realtor fees.

Agents know what to look for

Buyers will have a basic set of needs in mind of what they want from the property, from number of bedrooms to an attached garage to any number of other must-have and must-not-have factors. But the agent will look at issues which might not even cross your mind, from insect issues to furnace conditions to leaks. Their experience and knowledge will save you much more in the long run.An agent can hand over researched, current, and reputable data regarding a neighborhood’s demographics, crime rates, schools, and other important factors. That’s a lot of time-consuming research to do on your own, particularly if you don’t know where to start.

It makes you smarter than the one you hire, if they are smarter than you in what they do. The key is to know when to ask for help and hire the right person.

Book a free appointment to meet us for any info on buying/selling properties. Sky Tower Realty is one of the best realtors in Austin with several years of experience in the real estate market.