6 Reasons to Work With a Real Estate Agent When Buying a Home

A lot of people who are looking to buy a new home are first time home buyers. They make up at least 32% of people searching for a home to buy. There are a lot of homes for sale around the United States. There were about 560,000 homes bought around the country in 2016. If you are looking at buying a home of your own, there are a number of good reasons to work with a real estate agent. While many people think that they can go it alone, there are a number of benefits to having an expert on your side when you go looking for a home to buy. Here are some of the reasons people get expert help looking at and buying a home.

1. Real estate agents are experts. There is a lot of paperwork, materials, technical documents, reports, and other things you need to review or complete. Having an expert help you get the things you need together, put all of your paperwork in order, and give your offers the best chance of being accepted by the home sellers. Like every industry, there is a lot of lingo to learn in the real estate industry. You may want to learn some of it before you start to look at home but working with an expert realtor can help you navigate the process.
2. Real estate agents are true fonts of information and objective opinions. They will have, at their disposal, tons of data on the homes they will show you and the neighborhoods they are in. Just like when you are looking at rental properties, you will have a lot of questions about the houses you are looking at. You are going to want to learn about the zoning laws, utility expenses, transportation options, shopping centers, and other information about the area. An experienced realtor will be able to help you with all of that.
3. An expert can tell how much a house should sell for just by walking through it. When you have a qualified, expert working with you, you can learn if the houses you are looking at are prices at, below, or under their market value. The should also give you important information about the different neighborhoods you are looking at. A neighborhood that looks great (or terrible) today, may have a totally different value in the near future. If you are looking for up and coming areas, a good realtor can really help you get that.
4. They can help you with your negotiations. There are a lot of homes for sale that need some work done before a new person can move in. This is a challenging thing for people who are working on buying a new home on their own but when you have an experienced and qualified real estate agent on your side, they can work with the current owners and get at least some of the needed repairs done.
5. A good real estate agent can access resources you cannot. Most people who want to buy a home start with an internet search but that can miss a lot of houses that are being sold in your area. The realtor will have access to listings that are not going to be on the internet or available any other way. Some people go out of their way to make sure only realtors can see that their house is for sale. There are a number of reasons for this but the bottom line is having an expert by your side can widen the pool of homes you can look at and consider.
6. They can help with the closing process. You have put in an offer that has been accepted. You have secured the right financing, now that is all that is left is to complete the closing, and move in, right? Not so fast! A lot of sales fall through during the closing process. Real estate agents can see problems with this part of the home buying process and prevent them from derailing your purchase.

A good real estate agent can make the process of buying a house easier and less stressful.