Do You Need A Real Estate Agent?

Video Transcription

Do you need to get a real estate agent when it comes time to buying or selling your house? Now you might be thinking I’m going to say always yes because I’m a real estate agent myself, but stay tuned because you might be surprised.

Hi, this is Melissa Ballman and I am a realtor with Utah Homes by Melissa. So you might be wondering if you need an agent to buy or sell your house. And like I said, probably, maybe. There’s one circumstance where I could say, “Yeah, probably not. You could get away with not having a real estate agent.” And I’m going to cover that at the end.

But first, let me ask you this question. Let’s say you had to go to court next month and you were at risk of losing $10,000 or $50,000 for either fines or being sued for whatever. Would you walk into court next month without an attorney representing you? Chances are you’re saying no. And I would say the same thing for real estate except you’re talking about a three, four, 500,000 plus dollar purchase here and not $10,000 in court fines.

Using that same example, a lot of times people think they’re going to save money if they buy a house with the agent that has it listed, which isn’t actually the case. I ask this question of you too. If you were in that same scenario, would you trust the other attorney if it was even allowed, what’s not, but would you even trust the other attorney to represent you and your best interest and defend you against paying those fines or being sued for that? Again, probably not. You would want your own representation.

So when it comes time to buying or selling real estate in Utah, I always recommend that you have your own agent to represent you even in new construction. You want somebody that’s looking out for your best interests that’s going to go through all of the steps with you and tell you things that are important that you need to do. And they really get to know you as a person, so they’ll start to understand what is important to you as well. So always make sure you have somebody that’s representing you.

Now you might be thinking as a seller you have no control over that, but that’s not actually the case. I had this happen in 2019 last year where somebody contacted me because his sellers would not allow him to be dual agent, which means he represented both the buyers and the sellers. So I actually represented the buyers and they were my clients on that purchase because his sellers would not allow it. So you do have some control over having your own representation when it comes time to buying and selling.

Now when is the time that you probably maybe don’t need a real estate agent? In all honesty, let’s say, for instance, I have my house for sale and my cousin wants to buy my house. I have not listed it or anything else. We work it out amongst ourselves because we’re family, or we’re great friends, and we already know each other in that situation. Then you may not want to hire a real estate agent. Now as a buyer and a seller, you still might want to, to make sure you’re getting a fair and competitive price, but that’s probably the one instance where you could hire an attorney just to do the paperwork side of things for you, and you could just do it amongst your family member or your friend.

If you’re looking at buying or selling real estate in Utah, I would love to connect with you. Shoot me a message. Drop a comment below. Send me an email phone call, whatever. Just get in contact and let’s talk. If you liked this video, subscribe to my YouTube channel and make sure you click the bell. That way you’re alerted each week when my video drops on Fridays. As always, make it a great day.