"Why You Need a Real Estate Agent to Sell Your Home" by Guest Blogger, Kate Supino

When you start the process of selling your home, you may be tempted to forego hiring a real estate agent and try selling it yourself. After all, there are lots of websites out there that will list your home for pennies compared to the commission fees a real estate agent demands. Don’t fall prey to the prospect of saving a few dollars. Here are just a handful of reasons why you need a real estate agent to sell your home.

They Have Peeps 
When you hire a real estate agent, you don’t just get one person; you also get the services of their network. Real estate agents have teams of experts who work with them when selling your home. For example, they have home staging experts who can come in on your behalf and help stage your home to place it in the best light for showing. They have professional photographers who know how to highlight special areas of your home and turn them into focal points. If you were to hire all these professionals independently, the cost to you would be exorbitant.

They Have Experience 
Real estate agents typically have years of experience in the real estate industry. Compared to that, how many times have you sold a home? A real estate agent has done it a multitude of times, and they’ve seen every type of house, every type of buyer and every type of seller. They can handle every situation because they’ve probably handled it before.

Selling a Home Can Get Technical 
Make no mistake. Selling a home can get very technical. There are critical legal formalities and documents that must be handled in the correct way in order to complete the legal sale of real estate. If you attempt to sell your home yourself and miss something, there could be legal repercussions that could make the sale null and void. Why take that chance?

A real estate is a valuable ally during your home selling process. Selling your home is one of the most stressful times you will go through in your life. Why not get someone on your side who will help you get through the process as smoothly as possible?

Photos: How Important Are They When Selling a Property?

First Impressions are Lasting Impressions

These days, with all the advancements in Internet technology, buyers can take virtual tours of a property online, without ever stepping foot inside the house or even an agent's office. I can't tell you how many listings I have seen online that have few, poor or no photos at all.  What is the point of an online listing if there are no photos of the property?

On the flip side of the coin, I have personally fallen in love with a property based on the photos alone!  Especially the photos that capture the true essence of the house, highlighting the architectural elements and other attractive selling points, those are the best!  And I know from experience that a well photographed property gets far more inquiries than one with poor photos or no photos at all. That is why photographing a property is one of the services I provide in my Staging Consultant business.

The camera that I use is a Canon EOS Rebel XS Digital SLR.

 I also use a Sigma wide angle zoom lens and an external flash.

This combination seems to capture true colors and high definition details, which is what agents want when they post photos for online listings.  I also use several photo editing software programs depending on what needs to be edited, such as Picasa for straightening a crooked image or PhotoShop 9 for lighting adjustments. This attention to detail is what makes my photos professional grade. They are all shot in HD, cropped and edited before uploading to the real estate company's websites.

Tips for photographing a property to list:

• clean EVERYTHING. This includes outside too, like flower beds, the front porch and back patio, brickwork, siding, EVERYTHING.
• hide those trashcans!  Yes, everyone has them, but they do not belong in the photographs for your listings!
• hide your A/C units! Again, we all know they're there, but no one wants to look at them! At the very least, incorporate them in your landscaping with shrubbery or even a short piece of fence with plants in front of it. 

Try to take photos right after the lawn is mowed, and on a clear sunny day if you can. But keep in mind, a grey sky can be altered in Photoshop to a clear blue, as if it were spring time in heaven when you took it. You can also adjust the saturation levels in Photoshop, which in simple terms just means you bring out the colors more in the photo. This added step really enhances the photo for online viewing. Cropping may take some practice but a well-cropped photo shows only the best parts of the space. Two well-cropped photos of a room is better than one big awkward photo (which is what you get when you try to get the entire room in a single shot).

The key is to take the photos immediately after you've detailed the property inside and out so that it looks as clean and as new as possible in the photos. Pictures of the property are likely to be a potential buyer's first impression, so make the best of them!

I hope you find these tips helpful. If you have questions, please leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them!