What does a Real Estate agent do once a home gets listed? I have an agent selling my home and I don’t hear from her on a regular basis. This is the first time I have sold a home.

Hi Anna,

While I don’t know the particulars of your situation I can give you a brief descriptions of all the things going on behind the scenes of getting a home ready for listing.

Weeks before a listing there is an initial walk through of the home by you and your Realtor®. This would give your real estate agent the opportunity to familiarize themselves with your property, take notes for the listing information (types of appliances, gas or electric services, counter top type, general condition etc,) Your agent will also use this opportunity to get an idea about general condition of homes and how it compares to other homes either active on market or recently sold in the area. This will help them prepare the CMA (comparative market analysis) that they will present and go over with you as a guide to pricing your home for the market.

Also at that time you should be discussing what you, homeowner, may want to do to get the home in showing condition. This is sometimes a touchy subject with homeowners because we (home owners in general) are proud of our homes, as we should be. In the vast majority of cases homes are where we live. Depending on family makeup day to day living is not as it is always portrayed on TV shows and in movies.

On any given day I know exactly what someone walking into my home may face. Kids cloths in strange places, dishes in places that no one remembers eating at, things stuffed into couch pillows, napkins that the dog got a hold of and has torn apart. As you all know the list can go on and on. This is what a welled live in home sees every day.

Now comes time for listing a home. If your real estate agent does not have the knack they may bring in a professional “stagger” to assist. The idea is simple make the homes first impression to prospective buyers pop. They might suggest removing “Clutter” from a room This is a catch all phrase – Too many pieces of furniture that may be cluttering a room to the 50 nick knacks on the book cases that hold personal value and memories to you and your family. Every room in a typical home has clutter typically so don’t be offended with these suggestions and by all means every suggestion does not have to be acted on.

You have always heard “remove all personal photos”. In some homes there are walls of family photos from years of traveling and events. These photos are meant to remind the homeowner of all of these wonderful times but to a prospective buyer coming through the home they are a distraction. You don’t want them concentrating on your vacations because then they are not going to remember the home. This is my opinion why your photos need to be removed and stored for your next home. Yikes once you take down the photos you may have faded walls where the photos are, would suggest a quick coat of paint over that wall.

So we go room to room and make suggestions,, rearrange furniture, maybe remove some pieces to make rooms bigger, check out conditions of carpets and floors. Caulking around Bath tubs, weather stripping on doors, missing lights (or ones that don’t work) walk around outside looking for things a buyer might see. Wood rot at window sills, exterior caulking that is deterioration, missing shingles, overgrown bushes, trees that may need to be trimmed. As you can see there is potentially a lot of work that may need to be done.

Once you can get a list together it is easy to go through and estimate costs, see what you the homeowner can do on your own etc. A lot of the things are just deferred maintenance that we all get too busy to do at times.

Personally I have for clients, power washed decks/drives, cleaned windows, landscaped whenever I think I can lend a had to the appearance of a home. We do this so that the property makes a good 1^st impression. And we all know that 1^st impressions are very important.

Then the photo session! So since there are so many people starting their search on line your photos have a lot to do whether a potential client wants to see your home or not. We have all been on line looking at something, Houses, cars, cloths, jewelry and you know there are just some photos that don’t make things appealing. The agent in most cases will hire a professional photographer to come in and shoot your home. Most people cant believe it is there home when they see it presented on line but all of the weeks of hard work will now be rewarded.

OK next is the paperwork setting terms of the listing, how to handle showings (appointment with realtor/homeowner) call 1^st then go, how to handle comments by other agents/buyers, homeowner filling out a complete sellers disclosure. The key here is DISCLOSURE, DISCLOSURE. Disclose any issues you are aware of old or new.

So after all this the home goes into MLS or your locale way of listing a home. Sign may or may not go up and the showings start. Your realtor will then be requesting feed back from those who are showing your home (usually asking the other realtors for feedback of theirs and their clients). Some clients want to see every comment on the property regardless if pro or con. Some clients just want to know if they are going to make an offer. I had one client say don’t “never show me negative comments I am not doing any more work!” So it all depends on how it was discussed during the previous strategy sessions over the weeks coming up to listing.

Also during all of this there most likely is a separate marketing campaign going on that you don’t always see. Today there is a lot of online buyer looking for property so agents are busy posting your home for sale on any various sites. There is no one set way of market strategy most agents have had success in many different ways and they do what they think best for a property by property basis. There is also online and personal networking with other agents in your area. All of these things in combination of a local listing service are very minimal actions your agent is taking behind the scenes. Of course there are ads that may be appropriate for locale or regional publication that need customizing and have deadlines so the main story here is there are lots of things going on behind the scenes.

I am not sure what is going on with your case Anna, every situation is different, but this outline above catches about 80% of the tasks required (I am sure I missed a few minor tasks that are automatically done) to successfully get a home listed and presented to the marketplace. I am sure other Realtors® reading this will have slightly different processes or maybe some follow similar process but the end result is getting your home presented to the market and making the best 1^st impression possible.

There is nothing like the feeling that a homeowner/Realtor® experience when a buyer comes to your home because they liked what they saw on line. Stays at your home for an hour or more and writes you an offer.

I wish you luck in the sale of your home. I would suggest if you have not heard from your agent that you call them and ask them if they could communicate any activity, comments (good or bad) and let them know you need a little more involvement in the process.

If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me

Mobile/Text: 512-922-4922

Regards

Bob Kenney, Realtor®