I think there several things that real estate agents do that can be difficult. Telling a client that they did not get the home they wanted due to multiple offers is tough. Explaining why the cat urine smell in the house needs to go away to a seller can be awkward. For me and many other agents though, I believe that pricing a home for sale is one of the hardest things we as agents do, if we are doing it right.
In the Atlanta area we have a multiple listing service that gleefully advertises that they have made doing a cma so easy it can be done in less than 5 minutes! I wonder how accurate it is? If we as agents are doing things correctly, there is much analysis that goes into the valuation of homes.
Yes, I understand it is easy to pull up homes that were sold over a given time in a given area, but this only gives us a report on Comparable Market ACTIVITY, not analysis. Would you be happy with the answer to your question about your homes worth if the answer was something like, "Well, 5 homes sold this month and 2 more came on the market". Are they similar in size, age, look? Are the floor plans the same? What about the roof and AC systems age? This is where the analysis comes into play.
If you are taking 5 minutes to value a home, you are either really, really good, or you might be taking a short cut. I average about 3 hours on the valuations I produce. I do not advertise these as Free, just ask! I do not charge for this service, but by offering these out as free! we are devaluing one of the most important things we as agents do.
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