professionals. They can advise on service providers’ reputation and provide references who have previously worked with providers. Agents either possess intimate knowledge about your area or they have the contacts and resources to find the necessary information. They can identify comparable sales and find more demographic and statistical information than the average person. A real estate agent will also have market conditions data, which will affect your selling process. Many factors determine how you will proceed. Data such as the average per-square-foot cost of similar homes, median and average sales prices, average number of days on market, and comparisons of list-to-sold prices will have a huge bearing on what you ultimately decide to do. Attempting to sell your home without an agent requires a major effort, resources, and countless hours understanding and organizing all the work. Professional agents’ careers depend on their ethics and ability to build relationships with clients and the community they serve. Agents looking to make easy money rarely go to the effort of establishing a solid marketing plan or work at strategic pricing. Do you plan on interviewing more than one agent for the job of selling your home? If so, be sure to ask the right questions. In fact, whenever a prospective seller tells me they are interviewing several agents, I always ask these sellers just two key questions: 1) how did you go about choosing the agents that you plan to interview? 2) What interview questions are you asking these agents? When it comes to choosing the right agent, just imagine you have the opportunity to receive $1 million. All you had to do is
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