While it's great to trust our own abilities when dabbling into real estate, partnering with the professionals makes your picking, selling, and purchasing processes easier, smoother, and perhaps even quicker. Here are 7 reasons to get an industry expert involved in your real estate journey.
1. Extensive Knowledge Of The Industry
Real estate professionals have years and years of experience, and most likely some effective mentorship from their seniors. Consequently, real estate agents have garnered a good amount of industry know-how through time and exposure to the professionals that came before them — from your land titles to the types of ownership to the most common industry scams, real estate professionals can help you secure the best deals for your goals, and of course, your budget.
2. Access To A Wider Network
We'd naturally want a wide array of options when selling or securing a piece of property, so that we can get the most value out of our money while minimizing costs at the same time. With the help of real estate agents, you can get access to leads for more potential property options for you, as well as connections to the higher-ups that can speed up your process of securing, purchasing, or selling the piece/s of property you have your eyes on.
3. Negotiation Skills
Much like how you can haggle the prices of dry goods like clothes, shoes, and bags down at a bazaar, real estate agents can help give you a huge discount for your property purchase, competitive pricing points for a few property sales, or come up with a good escalation clause so you can secure your dream home or establishment at the soonest time possible.
The negotiation skills of an experienced and a highly skilled real estate professional are definitely helpful to not only help you get the best bang for your buck but also for you to be able to save as much as you can without scrimping on the essentials in property selling or property purchasing.
4. Troubleshooting
Being experts in the field, real estate professionals can come up with solutions for any concerns that might come up during the process. They have many contacts so that any holes in the contract or any details that might have been missed will be gone over, and the problems that arise from them will most likely be resolved in no time, or at least be prioritized and be given the ample spotlight instead of a to-be homeowner worrying about their particular concern all alone, without anybody from the industry to help them out.
5. Knowledge Of Techniques
Real estate professionals can fill you in on the latest trends in real estate, when the best time of purchase will be, what important details to look for in contracts, and just vital pieces of information you will need when making a purchase or selling a piece of property. Real estate agents have done all the needed work like thorough researching, regular networking, news browsing, question asking, and exploration on many different fields and aspects both in and out of real estate to impart to you and help you out, ultimately to let you make informed decisions on your real estate related endeavors.
6. Home Staging Help
Especially when you're selling your property, real estate agents can help you upgrade its curb appeal. Aside from replacing, decluttering, and cleaning things in your home, real estate professionals can help you access people who will take the perfect photographs, cinematic videos, and properly market a piece of property you'd want to sell. Whatever needs to be added, subtracted, or rearranged is taken care of, with a sprinkle of industry know-how as well, so you can make the most out of your sale.
7. Safety And Security
Above all the advantages of getting a licensed real estate professional, you can guarantee safety and security not only from cases of fraud, scams, or the headache inducing faulty properties that you may come across, but also from the tedious and soul draining securing and purchasing processes that others might put you through. Real estate agents make sure your personal information, your money, and everything that matters to you are safe and secure.
Work With A Bona Fide Real Estate Professional
Save yourself the troubles and hassles of manually going through listings, ocular visits, researching and verifying, and the possibility of getting scammed or not getting your money's worth by working with a trusted and credible real estate professional. Make sure that the agent you're working for is legitimate — licensed and recognized by the authorities, or else, your experience could be just as bad as going at it alone.
Verifying Your Chosen Real Estate Brokers And Agents
1. Look for their name in an official database
The Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), the Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development (DHSUD) and the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) are among the authoritative organizations that regulate real estate brokers and agents in the countries, along with other types of professionals like engineers and architects. This is a good way to make sure that who you're working for is part of the official list of licensed and registered real estate professionals.
2. Check their ID or registration number
Now that you've gone through the database, you need to check the status of their registration — if it's expired or not. If it's the former, then it would only be logical to prefer those who have deliberately made an effort to renew their license, as this shows that they are trustworthy and credible in the eyes of the authorities and of their clients. Additionally, you should also check if their registration number matches the numbers from the database. If it sounds like a made-up number, then it's best to forgo working with that particular agent.
3. Ask around about their reputation
If you're given any heads up about your real estate broker or agent being a red flag, then take the advice of the people around you and stay away from that individual – there is a good chance that you won't get the results that you want if you continue working with them. If they seem to be difficult to work with, or if they're giving you a hard time, you can always drop them in a cordial and respectful manner.