A Guide to Listing Agents [How Do They Help]

As a seller, your goal is to sell your house at the best possible price. To do this, you have to correctly price your house. You want to be available to meet potential home buyers and host open houses. And if and when necessary, navigate home inspections and make decisions on offers. A professional listing agent can help!

You can take on these tasks yourself or you can hire a real estate agent to do the heavy lifting. A real estate agent who assists a house seller is also known as a listing agent. As a result, they can be priceless to home sellers. A listing agent’s responsibilities include:

• analyzing and pricing your home,
• preparing and renovating your house,
• staging the house, marketing the home for sale,
• and managing prospects and negotiations. 

Find out how a listing agent can help you.

What are Listing Agents?

Listing agents are the same as regular real estate agents. But they help you sell your property rather than buying it. Additionally, they have the same certifications and licences, but they differ in responsibilities.

These are their key responsibilities:

Analyzing and Valuing Homes

One of the most important responsibilities of a listing agent is analyzing and pricing a house to list for sale. Your real estate agent should have the in-depth market knowledge. They should know what aspects to focus on to set a good and reasonable price for your house. 

The listing agent will examine the house and assess its strengths and weaknesses, such as location, age, and condition. Then they will help you set a price that is realistic for your property, and that is appropriate for the current market.

Preparing and Renovating the House

In case your home needs improvements, your real estate agent will likely advise you to renovate your home before you put your house for sale. Any changes to the house are always up to the homeowner.

However, there are times when putting in a small investment like repainting will raise the value of the house much higher than that investment. 

Fixing fixtures that are broken or in disrepair may increase your asking price for the property. You’ll have the option to sell the house “as is.” However, you’ll likely to see a bigger return after renovations for instance.

Things like ageing roofs, damaged flooring, and leaking pipes will most likely be brought up in a home inspection. As a result, you will have to work with the buyer on who will fix or pay for those fixes.

As you decide to repair these issues, you’ll build that cost into the listing price.

Staging the House

Firstly, a buyer has to use their imagination to see the house as a home and figure out where things should go and if it can be functional and attractive for the life they are hoping to live there.

Secondly, buyers can have a hard time looking past a mess of clutter and poor decorations to see a house’s potential. Your best bet is staging your house.

There are several ways to stage a home. You can remove clutter and use your own items to organize an inviting way for people walking through. Or you can bring in a staging company to fill a space and show a buyer how a home can look with the right décor.

First impressions are everything, and your listing agent will suggest ways to make these first impressions as impactful as possible.

Moreover, real estate agents list staging as a big reason for a house not selling quickly. As a result, making it a priority can be a fantastic move toward selling your property.

Marketing Your House with a Listing Agent

One of the most crucial duties for a selling agent is marketing your house to all the potential buyers out there. A good real estate agent takes high-quality pictures of your property, helps with staging your house, and ensures your property is listed. As well as a description that highlights the main selling points on real estate websites.

Marketing also includes many different activities:

• Listing the house on selling websites
• Advertising on social media
• Doing virtual walk-throughs
• Putting a ‘for sale’ sign in the front yard
• Contacting other agents that may have interested buyers
• Arranging showings and open houses 
• Reaching out to all of the real estate agents’ contacts.

Your real estate agent should do all they can to get the word out and attract buyers. They should have a target of how many potential buyers they will contact per week to try to sell your house.

Listing Agent will Keep the Sellers in the Loop

There are many moving parts to the selling process. An agent should keep you updated on requests for showings, recommend and set up open houses as well as let you know if there is any helpful feedback.

Receiving Feedback

Buyers who come through the house can have some of the best feedback for improving your chances to sell, and a good agent will make sure they solicit that information and let you know what potential buyers did or didn’t like about your house.

Additionally, an agent should be available to answer questions, address your concerns, and listen to your opinions. Your listing agent will keep you updated on market trends, advise you, and guide you through the legalities of selling your house.

Screen Buyers

Not everyone who visits your property is interested in purchasing it. 

You don’t want to waste your time preparing and showing your house to everyone who shows interest if there is no possibility of moving forward. In order to prevent this, an agent makes sure that potential buyers are always pre-approved.

Pre-Approval

This means that as long as nothing changes with their finances, the potential buyers are cleared to move forward with purchasing a home. Mortgage Pre-approval also shows that they are seriously looking and not just browsing the market for fun and can purchase the property.

Negotiating

When selling a house, there is a lot of negotiating involved. Here’s a few examples of negotiating topics: 

• With the potential buyer on price.
• Who will cover what and when the closing date should be.
• With cleaning and staging companies. 
• Dealing with lawyers and house inspectors and more interactions.

A big part of a real estate agent’s duty to the seller includes negotiating with all parties involved on their behalf and sorting things out in a way that is in their best interest.

An agent’s superior knowledge of the housing market in a specific area will enable them to be a better representative for home sellers than the owners might be for themselves.

How a Listing Agent Can Help You

Once the house has been prepared for selling; buyers have been found, the price has been agreed to, and the house has been inspected, it’s time to close the deal.

The listing agent will be there with you throughout to assist you over any bumps that might arise. They can answer questions, help you with paperwork, and make sure you have the right documents. 

Take the Next Step to Find a Listing Agent

When you are ready to sell your home, you’ll want to have an agent you can trust. If you are a home seller who is struggling to sell your house, let us help you connect with an experienced real estate agent in your area.