Real Estate Agents
When you start your home search, many begin on the internet. A quick Google search will produce 1000s of homes for sale in your location. If you find a home that you desire on a real estate site, you can almost always see the images online.
It is even becoming more common to take a virtual tour or see a video tour of the house. If you have purchased a house before to finding out the worth of the house is not too difficult. You can check what the current owner bought it for, check the real estate taxes, or have an experienced real estate agent run comparables. Basically, they compare what has sold in that community that is of comparable specification and can tell you with great accuracy what this home should sell for. While the ease of the internet is convenient and useful, often times you can be lead astray. The volume of information and difficulty of verifying its precision is a barrier many would like a professional to handle. With so many websites to use online a home buyer will get overloaded with data that is often bad.
Even from the most trusted websites the data is often old within days. Real estate agents must obtain a license in every state. A licensed real estate agent has access to data that regular home buyers do not. The most up to date data on every property in their location. This information the real estate agents use has to be maintained up to date by all partaking agents and brokers or they will be fined. frequently they hold real estate information that has not even been submitted yet. This often happens inside of big brokerages where many agents work together to guarantee their clients get the best properties available.
The database that real estate agents use is called the Multiple Listing Service or MLS for short. Every location in the United States has an MLS. While some MLSs cover more or less area depending on the number of residents of those areas. The primary purpose of an MLS is to allow participating real estate agents to make offers on houses to other agents when they find a buyer. The MLS home data is often available through other websites on the internet. Although, there is no need of third party sites to maintain their data updated and accurate for most situations, for-sale-by-owner (FSBO) houses cannot be straight added to an MLS, because the owners is not a paying member of the local Realtor association.
FSBO homes can be tough to locate, although web experienced FSBO homes are able to get the word out on their property nowadays.
What is a Realtor?
Oftentimes real estate agent and realtor are used interchangeably. However, they are not technically the same. A Realtor is a licensed real estate agent who is also a subscriber of the National Association of Realtors. Realtors are required to comply with a strict code of ethics and conduct. Many real estate agents now have their own websites with their area MLS information shown. Along with non-real estate websites that offer data on FSBO, foreclosure sites, county assessor sites, and valuation and marketing information sites. The excess of real estate data on the internet makes sifting through and actually understanding more difficult than ever before. Regardless the flood of real estate information available, most houses are still purchased through real estate agents listings on the MLS. With the rise of the internet the homes listed on the MLS are available for all to see. Gone are the days of print advertising. With so much real estate information available it can be hard to choose the best real estate agent for you. Many agents specialize in a type of home or in specific client. Picking the one that best fits your needs will allow for a smoother home buying experience than with a real estate agent that you don’t get along with. All established agents will have reviews available online for you to read through as well.