Your home is probably your most valuable possession. Chances are good that if you needed an operation you would not want an amateur to perform it, you'd want the most highly skilled physician available. The same philosophy should hold true for your home - you should hire the most highly skilled professional REALTOR® around to market it for you! Industry surveys show that homes sold by REALTORS® sell for an average of 9 1/2% more than similar homes sold by owner. 

When is a Real Estate Agent a REALTOR®?
When they are a member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®, The Voice for Real Estate® -- the world's largest professional association. The term REALTOR® is a registered collective membership mark that identifies a real estate professional who is a member of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® and subscribes to its strict Code of Ethics.

Listed below are the primary reasons why: 
The goal of any seller is to realize the highest dollar amount practical for his property. This means exposing it to the largest possible pool of potential buyers in order to make sure that the offer received is truly the best one obtainable. In Columbia, SC, approximately 22% of all buyers come from sources other than the Multiple Listing Service. So if you are trying to sell your home on your own you have now eliminated 78% of the potential buyers! Also, be wary of hiring a "discount" broker who will place your home in the MLS but will charge you fees in advance which are non-refundable whether or not your home sells. These brokers are not actively working on your behalf - they've already been paid! And most professional REALTORS® will avoid showing these listings because they know that in the long run they will end up doing the work of both the listing and the selling sides for only half the pay.

The goal of any buyer is to buy the home for the least amount of money possible. Quite often the people that show up at your door are the bargain hunters hoping that you have under-priced your home. Plus their philosophy is, if you are not using a REALTOR® the commission you are saving should come off the price of the home. So not only do you end up not  saving any money, now you have to handle the all the details of the transaction as well. Do you know how to write up a legally binding contract? Do you know what liabilities may be involved? Do you know what disclosures a seller must make? Do you know how to find out if your buyer is truly qualified before taking your home off the market and tying it up for a couple of months? Not only will you spend your time, you'll also have all the out-of-pocket expenses for advertising. Hiring a professional REALTOR® will save you time, money and aggravation.

A professional REALTOR® can market your home on a full time basis. As a homeowner, even if you don't work, it is difficult to stay at home 24 hours a day 7 days a week. There are always trips to the grocery store or the doctor's office that must be performed. Most buyers don't have the patience to wait to see a home. And if they call on a classified ad and get an answering machine, only 3% will leave a message!
Quite often financing is critical to making a deal work between the buyer and the seller. There are over 150 different loan programs on the market today, but many lenders offer only a fraction of them. Unless you are a financing expert, you may sacrifice the buyer who is willing to give you top dollar for your home just for lack of knowing how to make it affordable for him and where to look for his loan. All professional REALTOR® have a variety of lenders on call who each specialize in various types of loans. And the REALTOR® can help protect you from tying up your home with a buyer who truly can't qualify. Many of the prospective buyers who look at FSBO's are those who cannot qualify with a regular lender and hope to get you to finance the home for them.

Buying a home is an emotional decision. It has to "feel" right to the buyer when he first walks through the door. The house "talks" to the buyer as they are looking through it and making it their own. But it is hard for a buyer to feel comfortable with the seller following them through the property and describing every improvement the seller has made. The buyer feels he is intruding into someone else's private space instead of molding the home in his mind to his own taste. A REALTOR® can even help suggest changes they know would appeal to the buyer based on the REALTOR's knowledge of what the buyer has responded to in the previous homes they have viewed together. And as a seller it can be very hard to accept the implied criticism of any changes the buyer might wish to make.

The bottom line is this, if you settle for less than the best real estate professional in your area, you are settling for inferior marketing and can expect to obtain inferior results.

The cost in time and net proceeds will far exceed the commission dollars you thought you were saving!