The Perfect Listing Agent
The real estate agent you hire to sell your house, known as the listing agent, must be able to accurately answer your most important question: "What's it worth?" Houses sell for fair market value, which is whatever buyers are willing to offer and sellers are willing to accept.

Your agent should be the foundation of your real estate team. An agent helps you price your property, orchestrates the marketing and showing activities, negotiates with buyers on your behalf, supervises property inspections, and coordinates the closing.

Recognizing the attributes of the best listing agents
All the best listing agents have certain important qualities in common.

• They educate you: Your agent knows the selling process and carefully explains each step so that you understand exactly what's happening at all times.

• They enable you to make good decisions: Your agent always explains what your options are so that you can make wise decisions regarding your best course of action. They advise you if they think that you should add other experts (property inspectors, lawyers, and so on) to your team.

• They have contacts: Folks prefer doing business with people they know, respect, and trust. You can make use of your agent's working relationships with local lenders, property inspectors, lawyers, title officers, insurance agents, government officials, and other real estate agents.

• They have time for you. Perhaps the most important quality of a real estate agent. At Prudential Vision Properties, our reputation for client communication is exceptional.

A Team and the Right Players
Home buying is a team sport. Your job is to lead and coach the team, not play every position. After you assemble a winning team, your players should give you solid advice so you can make well-informed decisions.

You need to determine which experts are necessary and which tasks you can handle yourself. You are the one who must determine how competent or challenged you feel with the various aspects of the home-buying process.

The players
Here's an overview of the possible players on your team:

• You: You are the most important player on your team.
• Real estate agent: Because the house that you're getting ready to buy is probably one of your largest investments, you want to protect your interests by having someone on your team who knows property values. Your agent's primary mission is to help you find your dream home, tell you what your home is worth and then negotiate on your behalf to get the best deal.
• Real estate brokerage: All states issue two different real estate licenses: one for salespeople (agents) and one for brokers. Real estate brokers must satisfy more stringent educational and experience standards than agents do. If your real estate agent is not an independent broker or the broker for a real estate office, the agent must be supervised by a broker who's responsible for everything that your agent does within the course and scope of the duties of a real estate sales professional. Your agent's broker will provide back-up support to ensure a successful transaction.
• Lender: A good lender offers competitively priced loans and may even be able to help you select the best type of loan from the financial minefield of loan programs available today.
• Property inspectors: A house's physical condition greatly affects its value. Your home should be thoroughly inspected from roof to foundation before you purchase it to ensure that you actually get what you're buying.
• Closing officer: You and the seller need a neutral third party, a closing officer, who'll handle funds and paperwork related to the transaction without playing favorites. The closing officer is the home-buying game's referee.
• Financial and tax advisors: Before you buy a home, you should understand how the purchase will fit into the context of your overall financial situation. You should address the issues of what your financial goals are and, given those goals, how much house you can afford.

Each player brings a different skill into the game. Assemble a great team, and they will guide you through any situation that may arise during your transaction. Good players act as advisors, and ultimately, the decision making is your job.

Using a real estate professional to help you shop various new home communities is a time saving tool. A Realtor® can get you information on all the new home communities in the Columbia, Missouri area, and offer you professional guidance.

If you're an out-of-town buyer, another key advantage of getting assistance from a local Realtor® is that your representative can visit the site during construction and give you feedback as well as eMail you photos of your new home's building progress.

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