Real Estate Dover Delaware, Why do I need an agent?

Real Estate Dover Delaware –

Why do you need a real estate agent in Dover, Delaware? This is a commonly asked question and there are many answers depending on who you ask. Do you NEED an agent? No, whether a Buyer or Seller, you CAN accomplish buying or selling a property without a real estate agent. SHOULD you use an agent? Of course, as an agent, I am going to tell you absolutely and I am going to give you a little bit of insight into the why but telling you some of what we do every day. The practice of Real Estate in Dover Delaware, is in my opinion, much more complex than in many other states.

I will touch on other reasons in later posts and there is a great article published by NAR at http://www.realtor.com/basics/allabout/realtors/why.asp?source=web  but probably the key reason that you SHOULD use a real estate agent is  that your full time real estate agent has current knowledge about the local laws, contracts, mortgage regulations, standard processes and the resources and time to find solutions to any challenges that may arise. And believe me, there are many different challenges that occur on a regular basis! Sure there are many people that successfully sell or buy their home without the use of a real estate agent and they may even be fortunate enough to have a smooth process. Unfortunately, even when we do everything right and are very proactive (rather than reactive), especially in today’s market, there are very few “smooth” transactions. But hopefully, with the right agent, the client will never really know how challenging it was! One of our goals is to make the process as seamless as possible for our clients. With constant changes in the mortgage industry and local codes and regulation changes, it’s difficult for even a full time agent to foresee a potential problem, whether it be with the house itself or with the Buyer’s financing. What many people don’t realize is that their real estate agent is go go go all day, into the evening, and often weekends. What are they doing? Well, here in Delaware, it seems we do it all!

Just a glimpse of what we do involves researching parcel boundary lines, deed and mortgage history, deed restrictions, utility information, code regulations, septic & well history, soil maps, flood plains… and that’s all before we ever even list a house or write an offer! While the Real Estate Commission has approved form contracts, we are often writing additional terms and amendments to protect our clients interest, so we need to understand legal terminology to do this successfully.  Once negotiations are complete and an Agreement of Sale is ratified, there are home inspections, water tests, well inspections, septic inspections, radon tests, wood destroying insect inspections, lead based paint inspections, pool inspections, irrigations system inspections, land surveys…… we coordinate with the inspectors and the selling/buying parties, we negotiate repairs of major defects and safety concerns. If we get through all of that and are still moving forward, we coordinate with the mortgage companies and the documentation they need for our Buyers and follow up for loan commitments for our sellers. We coordinate with the attorneys (Delaware is an “attorney state” for real estate transactions) and assist with title issues if necessary… the list goes on and on and on. Of course in all of that, we spend hours upon hours showing homes to clients, taking photos and measurements for listings, creating brochures and virtual tours, loading information into a gazillion websites… goodness, I’m almost out of breathe and only typing!  There are so many tools in our industry which are designed to make us more efficient, yet there are so many resources and so little time to utilize them all! Speaking of time, I’m going to need to wrap this up for now and get back to the work I need to accomplish. Stay tuned for more to come! I am Broker for a successful real estate office in Dover, a Property Manager and help people buy and sell their homes every day – I have a ton of knowledge to share!