Reason #4: We solve problems. This is the most important thing a real estate agent can do for you. After all, just because a buyer is interested in your house doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be able to complete the purchase. Here’s a story that illustrates this perfectly. A seller put her home on the market. The perfect buyer came along and made a full-price offer. The seller and the buyer signed a contract. But the contract had to be canceled when the buyer ran into a problem with financing. The seller told the story to an agent. It turns out the financing problemwould have been easily solvable. But the seller hadn’t known how to solve it, so the sale had fallen flat. Unfortunately, the seller had to put the home back on the market, and it took another five months to sell. The seller had to pay an additional five months’ worth of mortgage payments, property taxes, and homeowner’s insurance premiums. In addition, she had to maintain the lawn, pay the electric bill, and take care of the property while it sat on the market. That reminds me of an old story. A huge steamship boiler system wasn’t working properly. The steamship captain hired a top boiler expert to fix it. The expert asked a few questions and inspected the boiler room. He looked at the pipes that twisted and turned every which way, and listened to the boiler and all the machinery. Then he reached into his tools and grabbed a small hammer. He gently tapped one valve and — voilà — the problem was fixed. He sent a bill for $1,000 to the steamship’s owner. When the owner saw the $1,000 invoice, he was as mad as a hornet! He called the expert and confronted him about the
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