Estate agents are legally required to share this information with potential buyers. Your estate agent and legal representative will ask for various pieces of information throughout the selling process. You are likely to have received some of it when you purchased your property. Like any homebuyer in today’s market where sellers have more of an upper hand, any offer you put on the new home should come with a mortgage preapproval. Agents also recommend selling your first house before making offers on your second, especially if you’re planning to pay the full price on the next home. In the US, there are 2 million active real estate agents. That’s according to the National Association of Realtors.

We’ll gather offers from our network of buyers and compare to what you can expect to make with a top real estate agent. Navigate your home sale confidently with tips from the nation’s highest-performing real estate agents. Follow their professional advice for every obstacle that could come your way as a first-time home seller. The home seller typically pays the real estate agent’s commission, typically around 5 percent to 6 percent of the home’s sale price.

There are also discount/reduced-fee agents if you’re looking for a less hands-on experience. A listing agreement is the contract between a seller and a real estate agent that gives the agent the ability to market and sell the home. Once you sign a listing agreement, you will be bound by contract to work with that real estate agent.

If you can afford to wait for the right buyer, set a higher list price. In hot sellers’ markets where homes routinely sell above asking price, a lower list price may trigger a bidding war that ends with your home selling for far more than it should. Assuming you use a local agent with experience selling houses like yours, they should know the market well. They should also know how to interpret comps, or recent comparable sales, and recent sales patterns.

But a very small portion of those licensed agents actually make money. And the longer they’re agents, the more likely they become top producers. You develop relationships over the years and over time your business balloons. And those are the agents you want to go after if you want to sell quickly.