What Are The Duties Of A Real Estate Agent?

"Well, the function of the real estate agent is to assist the buyer. Number one, moving is traumatic and stressful and one of the main things that the agent does on behalf of a buyer or seller is to try and help them. The first thing we try to do is take as much of the stress out of the transaction as possible; try to make it a little less intimidating, though there is a lot of information available on the Internet and what not. People especially in the current market place, which we have had for about 4 years now, try to find most of the properties on the Internet. The majority of those properties located on the internet are sold, according to research that is updated every two years by the National Association of Realtors. It is a home buyers and sellers' guide, and the National Association has just a phenomenal research department. 57% of the people that have polled as of 2004 said the primary reason they contacted a realtor was to help them find the right house. So that's still what they consider to be the primary function reserved for them.

We help them narrow down and find the right house and we do that by going through a process of counseling with buyers before we ever do anything else with them. We find out what exactly their wants and needs are. We find out where he works, where she works, what the needs of their children are. And that's the sort of thing that if we do our job properly (which we like to believe we do) when we get ready to go out and sell property we will have 5 or 6 houses and every single one of those houses should be a house that the buyers will purchase. They might buy one over another because of an emotional reason, or something that they liked in the yard better than another one, or they like the layout of the kitchen or whatever it might be. But every one of them met what they laid out for us as criteria.
When it comes to sellers, they don't even have a clue in many cases what all the disclosure requirements are under the state law in the state that they operate in. Every year, we have some new disclosure mandated upon us by the legislature of our state and most states are doing the same kind of thing. The reason for that is the consumer is in a very strong movement today. Consumers want to be protected in the transactions. So the legislatures in all the states were attempting to make sure that the purchasers are given every bit of information that they need before they buy a house. So we continue to have more disclosures which are placed upon us, plus to be honest with you today most of these people work are looking to buy house during the daytime. We have found that the vast majority of the people who are first sale owners today are prepared to pay half the commission. They just don't want to pay the listing side, but if you talk to enough people who have sold their own homes, the majority of them will say they won't do it a second time. Some of them may have had a good experience but a lot of them found that there was a whole lot more to it than they thought. There are people out there who think all we do is drive people around in our cars all day, and then they get to the middle of a transaction and find out that real estate agents do a whole lot more than that. It can be very complicated, not that it is rocket science, but some transactions can get extremely complicated and it is our job to protect the interest of the parties we represent depending on whether I represent the seller or the buyer."