[designer300z]

I think there's a couple of fundamentally flawed points in this argument. (Bear in mind that I am a Realtor, so I do have a natural bias). First, you would be correct to say that an agent is not NECESSARY to sell a home. However, to say that an agent does so little is inaccurate as well.

Not all agents are equal and there are some that do the bare minimum, but there are also some that put in considerable time/money to get a listing sold. If it doesn't sell, they don't get paid, and they're out the cash in marketing, not the homeowner.

Also, an investment planner is not NECESSARY to determine how to diversify your finances, and not everyone uses them. Why? Well, the simple answer is that what they do is possible for any individual to do at it's core. The same holds true for real estatae You're paying not only for what agents do, but also their experience, i.e. what they KNOW as well as what they DO.

Can an owner pay a few hundred bucks to get a listing on the MLS? Yes, but when it hits realtor.com, it would return higher on searches if I had listed it, plain and simple. Why? because I spent the extra $1,500 to ensure priority visibility, and I understand how various websites rank their homes. In many cases is comes down to how much was spent on the listings (much like ebay does), how many photos were included, virtual tour inclusion, etc.

People aren't just contracting me to post it on the MLS and stick a sign in the yard. They're hiring me to get it on craigslist, trulia, zillow, hotpads, kajiji, century21.com, localism.com, teambenya.com, yahoo, google, wall street journal, homes.com, excite, house.com, justlisted.com, juno, and a few dozen others. Can an individual do it themselves? Sure, but I'm the one who's done it time after time and has the experience working quickly and efficently with each interface. I don't need to experiment to find what works best on those sites, and individual owner would.

I'm also the one sending out that information directly to other realtors, brokerages, military bases, etc. I'm mailing information to neighbors, clients, on any given listing it's usally about 200-300 postcards in the first week to get the buzz out there on the property.

I'm stitching photos together to build virtual tours, making sure that those are loaded onto every website possible, maximizing photo counts, optimizing web search results, making recommendations of how to optimize showing quality, following up with feedback for each showing, and pushing other realtors to get their clients in the door.

All of the is happening without a sales contract. Once a contract is negotiated/accepted, a realtor is babysitting lenders, appraisers, underwriters, inspectors, repairmen, the other realtor involved, etc. To ensure that the deal gets to closing for their clients.

All that being said, the process can be done without me involved, and that's completely fine. I'm not making my money just for what I do, but also for what I know, who I have connections with, and my experience with the local area and market.

I'm not the type of person to say that it can't be done without an agent, but there is a reason and a value for my services, and I believe that some agent's services are more valuable than others. I've seen first hand listings that have sat on the market for months without a bite. In many cases, if it's priced right, the fact it was not marketed/promoted well was prohibitive to it ability to attract a buyer.