Its important to set the expectations for working with your REALTOR and understand your agents obligations.
One of the first questions many sellers ask when interviewing Listing Agents is Do you have buyers for our home?
A better question to ask is What will you do to market our home so every agent with a potential buyer for our home will want to show it?
In this day of the Internet, you want to make sure every prospective buyer searching for homes online can find yours and tells their Buyer Agent they want to see your home.
The obligations of a Listing Agent
The most important job of the Listing Agent is to properly research comparable properties and current values to advise their seller client on an appropriate listing price. This includes recommendations on things to do prior to listing the home, advice on staging and procedures before, during, and after showing appointments.
A good Listing Agent will have a Professional Photographer take pictures, make sure to market the property on Social Media, on the Internet, and via other trending marketing mediums. The Seller has a responsibility to listen to the market. It is their Listing Agents responsibility to tell sellers what the market is saying and what it will take to interest a potential buyer.
In summary, it is your Listing Agents job to market your home for sale. The agent will enter the property into the MLS with all the details and accurate information as well as good quality photos. The MLS is the source of data fed to hundreds of other sites like Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com.
Lets talk about Dual Agency
Lets go back to the above question asking whether the Listing Agent might have a buyer for your home. In most states, that would mean that your Listing Agent is now a Dual Agent with legal obligations to both sides. Dual Agency is not even legal in some states because they question if you can properly represent two opposite sides of a real estate transaction. It is allowed in Delaware, but it can be problematic.
Sellers are always fine with it until they are not. And thats where the trouble can begin. Read more about Dual Agency in our earlier blog post: What does Dual Agency mean when it comes to Real Estate?
Buyer Agents
Whether a Buyer Agent works at Active Adults Realty or any other brokerage, it is not their job to sell your home just because it is listed with the same company. It is their job to represent their Buyer client.
It is the Buyer Agents job to determine what their clients are looking for, what their budget is, and what kind of community/location will work for them. As I said above, it is not their job to sell your home.
How does Active Adults Realty market your home for sale?
Any home listed for sale with an Active Adults Realty Listing Agent receives all the marketing described above plus the targeted marketing we do to reach out to the 15,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 every day, at least the ones considering a home in Delaware. If your home has appeal to that market, your home will be found because of our Internet Marketing, on activeadultsdelaware.com, on our blog, on our social media, and in our YouTube videos. This is all above and beyond the standard checklist any professional listing agent would do.
These efforts generate calls and inquiries from prospective buyers and these leads are distributed to our Buyer Agents. Our marketing also generates showing activity by other agents because their clients found your home online and said, I want to see this home!
In Summary
Before I became a REALTOR, I was a real estate client several times. I bought and sold a home in Houston, TX. I bought and sold several homes in Northern Virginia and Maryland. As I look back on those transactions, I realize I did not understand any of this and I thought I was smart. I did not know who represented whom, but if I had, it all would have changed by now and it is different in every state.
We can all be experts in our own field but until you do real estate every day as your profession, you cant be expected to understand it all. You can, however, expect the real estate professional you choose to be an expert and represent your interests to the best of their ability. If you have questions or would like to schedule an appointment to discuss buying or selling your home, were here to help. Contact us today.