Real estate agents are licensed professionals who arrange real estate\n transactions, putting buyers and sellers together and acting as their \nrepresentatives in negotiations. Real estate agents usually are \ncompensated completely by a commission\u00e2\u20ac\u201da percentage of the property’s \npurchase price, so their income depends on their ability to get a deal \nclosed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In almost every state, a real estate agent must work for or be affiliated with a real estate broker <\/a>(an individual or a brokerage firm), who is more experienced and licensed to a higher degree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Real estate agents usually specialize in either commercial or residential real estate. Either way, they perform different duties<\/a>, depending on whether they work for the buyer or the seller<\/a>.\n Agents who work for the seller, also known as listing agents, advise \nclients on how to price the property and prepare it for sale, including \nproviding tips on last-minute improvements that can boost the price or \nencourage speedy offers. Seller agents market the property through \nlisting services, networking, and advertisements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Agents who work for the buyer search for available properties that \nmatch the buyer\u2019s price range and wish list. These agents often look at \npast sales data on comparable properties to help prospective buyers come\n up with a fair bid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Agents act as go-betweens for the principal parties, carrying offers \nand counter-offers and other questions back and forth. Once a bid is \naccepted, agents on both sides often continue to work, helping their \nclients through the paperwork, conveying communications, advising on \ninspections and moving, and generally shepherding the deal through to \nclosing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s important for consumers to understand whether a real estate \nagent represents the buyer, the seller or both parties; obviously, the \nagent\u2019s loyalty can greatly affect several details of the transaction, \nincluding the final price. State laws regulate whether an agent can \nrepresent both parties in a real estate transaction, technically known \nas dual agency. Agents must disclose their representation so that buyers\n and sellers are aware of any conflicts of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Traditionally, an agent is paid a commission that is a percentage of \nthe property\u2019s sale price. The more the house sells for, the more money \nan agent makes. However, with online listings allowing consumers to do \nmuch of the shopping on their own without help from an agent, the \ntraditional payment structure is changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some brokerages charge a lower commission for more expensive houses, \nand some handle the entire transaction for a flat fee that\u2019s much less \nthan a regular commission. Other companies offer a fee-for-service \npricing structure that lets sellers pay only for certain parts of the \nsale process, such as adding the property to a multiple listing service (MLS).<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Laymen often use the terms “real estate agent,” “real estate broker,”\n and “realtor” interchangeably. While overlap among the three definitely\n exists, so do key differences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The exact definitions of and distinctions between an agent and a \nbroker vary among states. Generally, however, anyone who earns a basic \nreal estate license (which involves taking a certain number of \naccredited courses and passing an exam) can be called a real estate \nagent. A real estate agent is essentially a salesperson, qualified to \nhelp consumers buy or sell a property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A real estate broker is a step up the professional food chain. \nBrokers have additional training and education that has qualified them \nto pass a higher licensing exam; most states also require them to have a\n certain amount of recent experience as an active real estate agent. \nBrokers handle the technical aspects of the real estate transaction: A \nclient signs a contract with a brokerage, not the individual agent. In \nmany states, their additional certification authorizes brokers to handle\n other legal and financial aspects of a deal: handling the earnest money deposit<\/a> and establishing the escrow <\/a>account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Brokers typically own a firm or a franchise. They can be solo \npractitioners, but they must attain another higher-level license if they\n want to hire agents or other brokers to work under them. As mentioned \nearlier, a real estate agent usually cannot work alone, but must operate\n through a real estate broker; the exception is states like Colorado and\n New Mexico, which mandate that every<\/em> real estate professional \nbe licensed as a broker. Usually, though, agents work for brokers, and \nthey split their commissions with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, every real estate broker is a real estate agent (or has been), \nbut not every real estate agent is a broker. How do realtors fit into \nthe equation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A realtor<\/a> is a member of the National Association of REALTORS<\/a>\u00c2\u00ae (NAR), a trade association. Both agents and brokers can be realtors, along with property managers<\/a>, appraisers<\/a>,\n and other real estate industry professionals. Realtors are expected to \nbe experts in their field and must follow the NAR’s code of ethics, \nwhich requires agents to uphold specific duties to clients and \ncustomers, to the public and to other realtors. In addition to NAR, \nrealtors must belong to a state or local real estate association or \nboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All realtors are real estate agents or brokers (or something \nrelated), but not all agents or brokers are realtors, in other words. As\n of November 2018, the organization reported <\/a>that it had 1.36 million members. Some 65% of them held real estate agent’s licenses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What Is a Real Estate Agent? Real estate agents are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts-comments"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","featured_image_urls":{"full":"","thumbnail":"","medium":"","medium_large":"","large":"","1536x1536":"","2048x2048":"","chromenews-featured":"","chromenews-large":"","chromenews-medium":""},"author_info":{"display_name":"Being BOB","author_link":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/author\/admin\/"},"category_info":"All Posts & Comments<\/a>","tag_info":"All Posts & Comments","comment_count":"2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p822aG-w2","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beingbobblog.com\/happy-holidays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} How a Real Estate Agent Works <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
KEY TAKE AWAYS <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Real Estate Agents’ Compensation <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Real Estate Agent vs Real Estate Broker <\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Real Estate Agent vs Realtor <\/h3>\n\n\n\n