Real estate Buying and selling

Home Buying and Selling-Do you Need a Buyer's Agent and a Selling Agent?

by Nancy Niblett

Some people will tell you that when it comes time to sell your home and buy a new one that you should hire a Selling or Listing Agent and a separate buyer's agent because one specializes in selling a home and one specialist and buying homes. That may have been true years ago but in today's buying and selling real estate market there is so much more to consider when picking your listing and buying agents. First and foremost make sure you have a fully licensed Realtor that has experience. It is difficult enough in this market to trust your biggest asset to just anyone.While selling your home is very important and a listing agent should know how to best sell your home by pricing correctly, tips on staging and decorating as well as marketing and making your home look as desirable as possible on the multiple listing system as well as to potential buyers on the internet and print marketing. Keep in mind that they can advise you what is best but you ultimately set the list price. Setting the price too high in today's market will be detrimental in so many ways. You are competing with bank owned homes, short sales and desperate sellers. If you are not getting traffic the very first thing is to look at the price. While having an agent that knows how to list your homes but that is what they "specialize" in and do not represent buyers themselves may sound like the ultimate person to have but think about this: If the listing agent is not out there with buyers, seeing other homes in this marketplace and staying on top of what buyers want and see then are they really the one you want listing your home? Sure, any realtor can take great photos, give decorating tips and should be proficient in pricing and marketing but then what?
Your next step may be to buy a home when yours sells; does that mean you use a different agent? Well, if a "listing" specialist is just that, then may you do? A full service agent is one that would be proficient not only on listing your home but assisting in finding the right home as well because when they buyer and their agent comes along to buy your home, I would hope your listing agent knows buying strategies that they buyers agent would already know. Staying on top of both buying and selling is a more "full service" type of representative. Beside the fact that they know both ends of the deal, you are likely to get a discount on selling your homes if you conduct two transactions with them.
I have heard that some people use a buyer's agent to buy and a listing agent to sell. To me that sounds like a little bit of a cop out, we all know that any agent should know how to do both. A buyer's agent is likely a more inexperienced agent working for the much too busy listing agent that has no time to take personal care of their own clients. I would expect my agent to not only know what is going on with the selling of my property but to stay on top of my needs as a buyer as well. Find yourself a well experienced agent that handles all of your needs well.
If you are looking for a nice Arizona home, check out homes for sale in Power Ranch. You may also want to look at homes for sale in Seville, both of these communities are in Gilbert, AZ.