the more you know...

Real Estate Blog

Is Hiring a Real Estate Agent Worth It?

An Honest Answer from an Orange, CT Agent

It’s one of the most common questions I hear, and it’s a fair one. Between Zillow, online valuation tools, and endless YouTube videos, it can feel like you have everything you need to buy or sell a home on your own. So is hiring a real estate agent actually worth it?

I’m obviously not a neutral party. I’ve built my career helping buyers and sellers across Orange and the surrounding New Haven and Fairfield County towns, and I serve on the Orange Board of Assessment Appeals, so I spend a lot of time thinking about what homes are really worth.

But rather than give you a sales pitch, I want to walk you through what actually happens in real transactions, including a few stories where having the right agent, or the wrong one, changed everything.

You Can Cut Your Own Hair, But Should You?

I like to explain it this way. Real estate is a service, and like any service, you can technically do it yourself. You can give yourself a haircut, too. It’s just probably not going to come out great.

A lot of people think what agents do is easy. Honestly, the good ones make it look easy, but that comes from years of experience, from knowing what to do when an objection or issue comes up and having the right answer ready.

Here’s the truth most people don’t realize: listing a home is the easy part. Yes, you can put your own home on Zillow. The hard part comes after that:

  • Navigating negotiations, especially after the home inspection
  • Understanding how the buyer’s financing works and where it can go wrong
  • Coming up with practical solutions when problems arise, instead of panicking
  • Keeping a deal together over something that could have been handled calmly and professionally

Most deals that fall apart don’t fall apart because of the house. They fall apart because of how a problem was handled.

A Case Study: The Seller Who Left Money on the Table

One of the clearest examples I have involves a seller who decided to sell her home on her own.

She had put about $80,000 into the property: a new kitchen, refreshed bathrooms, fresh paint, and new floors. It was a beautiful home. She priced it herself, believing she’d priced it correctly, and received six offers. That alone should have been a signal that the price was too low.

Then came inspections. The buyer’s inspector reported that the home needed a new roof and a new septic system, and the buyer started pushing her to cover both.

Where Experience Made the Difference

At the time, I had a similar home that was priced higher and had gone under contract at a higher price than hers. She called me with a couple of questions because she was trying to gauge value and was feeling the pressure over the roof and septic.

The problem was clear. Her accepted offer was already below what I would have expected the home to sell for. If she also paid for a new roof and septic, she’d be giving away even more.

She believed she was stuck and couldn’t get out of the deal. But I explained that once the buyer requested those repairs, they were effectively taking the contract back to the negotiating stage and trying to change the terms. With her attorney’s help, she was able to cancel the contract, and that’s what she chose to do.

The outcome: She replaced the roof and septic herself, then relisted the home above the original accepted offer. With nearly all the major components now updated, there were no issues at inspection, and the home sold above the new asking price.

She did the work herself, and she’s clearly a capable person. But without someone who understood local values and how contract negotiations actually work, she would have sold an underpriced home and then paid for a roof and septic on top of it.

What Happens Between “Accepted Offer” and Closing Day

Most people think the hard part is finding a buyer or getting an offer accepted. In reality, the period between accepted offer and closing is where deals are won or lost. Two of the biggest pressure points are inspections and appraisals.

Inspections: When a Report Isn’t the Final Word

I recently had a deal where, after inspections, the buyer wanted the seller to bring in a structural engineer. The buyer’s inspector had flagged what he called a “modified roof truss system.”

Inspectors sometimes include items like this to cover themselves, so I took a closer look. I reviewed the photos and went up into the attic myself. What the inspector had seen was the sides of some old shelving that had fallen down. Not a modified truss system. Old shelves.

I also sent the photos to one of the inspectors I work with regularly. He laughed when he saw what had been written. Because we have a great working relationship, he was happy to take a call from the buyer’s side and explain it himself, so they weren’t just taking my word for it.

Now imagine that deal with an inexperienced agent and a buyer who would only listen to their own inspector. The seller could easily have paid a structural engineer to come out and examine some old shelving, and the deal could have stalled or collapsed over nothing.

Appraisals: A Low Number Isn’t Always the End of the Road

A lot of agents believe that if an appraisal comes in low, that number automatically becomes the new purchase price. It doesn’t have to be.

There are often ways to bridge the gap by adjusting how the financing is structured. These solutions can be fairly simple, but you have to know they exist and how to put them in place. That knowledge is what keeps people from wasting time and money, and from letting one person’s opinion derail an entire transaction.

Is There Ever a Time You Don’t Need an Agent?

I want to be honest here. I can’t think of a situation where I’d tell someone going without an agent was the better choice. But I’ll say this just as clearly: a bad agent can cost you as much as having no agent at all.

A Cautionary Tale: The Golf Course Listing

I recently met with sellers whose home sits right on a golf course. The views are a real selling point, and I made a significant adjustment for them in my pricing. My recommendation was to list at $799,000. With the right marketing and multiple offers, I believed it could climb to $825,000, possibly even $850,000, because of the location.

Another agent told them to list at $869,000, which was far too high. They went with him.

From what I could see, he did nothing to sell the house beyond putting it on the market. He never let the golf course community know the home was available. There were free, simple online marketing steps he could have taken, and he didn’t. When it didn’t sell, he blamed the sellers for refusing to lower the price, even though he was the one who told them $869,000 wouldn’t be a problem.

That home is still sitting, waiting for the listing to expire, and the sellers now want to relist with me. Unfortunately, they’ve lost valuable time on the market, and that time has a cost.

Watch Out for the Agent Who Tells You What You Want to Hear

It never hurts to get a second opinion before listing. Just be aware that sometimes the second opinion is simply the one that agrees with the price you hoped for. Overpricing to win the listing and then blaming the seller later is an old trick, and it’s the seller who pays for it.

How Buyers Benefit From Independent Pricing

The same principle applies when you’re buying. Anyone can list a house for whatever price they want. The asking price is not the value of the home.

When I work with buyers, I always run my own comparable sales and set the asking price aside. We come up with our own pricing range. If my buyers love a home but feel it’s overpriced, I review the comps with them and show them the range where I believe it will sell, so they know when they’d be getting a fair deal and the point at which they’d be overpaying.

What’s Different About Today’s Market

Pricing is everything right now, whether you’re buying or selling.

For the past several years, the market was extremely hot, and the majority of homes in our area sold over asking. That has shaped buyer psychology. Even today, buyers often feel they need to offer over asking price. So if a home is listed even slightly above market value, buyers don’t see value, and rather than submit a lower offer, they simply walk away.

That’s why I always talk with sellers about listing at or slightly below market value. That’s when buyers come in, see value, and aren’t afraid to go over asking, even in today’s market.

Interest rates have also had a big effect, moving up and down and changing what buyers can afford from month to month. Working with an agent who has strong relationships with both buyers and lenders can make a real difference in keeping deals moving when rates shift.

Questions to Ask Before You Hire an Agent

Before you sign a listing agreement or a buyer representation agreement, interview your agent. Here are the questions I’d ask:

  • What is your pricing strategy for this home, and what comps support it?
  • What is your marketing plan, specifically, beyond putting it on the MLS?
  • What happens if the home doesn’t sell in the first few weeks? What are the next steps?
  • Can you share examples of recent sales and how you handled them?
  • How would you handle a tough inspection report or a low appraisal?
  • What relationships do you have with lenders, inspectors, and attorneys?

A good agent will answer these in detail and with real examples. If the answers are vague, that tells you something.

So, Is Hiring a Real Estate Agent Worth It?

Yes, as long as it’s the right agent. You’re not paying someone to put a sign in the yard and listing on the MLS and Zillow. You’re paying for pricing expertise, negotiation skills, relationships, and the experience to solve problems calmly when they come up, so a single issue or one person’s opinion doesn’t cost you thousands of dollars or your deal.

If you’re thinking about buying or selling in Orange or anywhere in the greater New Haven area and want an honest conversation about pricing and strategy, I’m always happy to talk.

Free Real Estate Market Report

Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged.

Let's Get Started

Curious what your home could sell for?

Find out with a free home valuation — fast, accurate, and no obligation. Whether you're thinking of selling now or just exploring your options, get a clear picture of your home's current market value in minutes.