I thought because I literally haven't seen a single "what do real estate agents even do" post on here, I'd post my positive experience -- We bought a house thi

I thought because I literally haven't seen a single "what do real estate agents even do" post on here, I'd post my positive experience -- We bought a house this year in a competitive, expensive market (DC). Our agent found the listing through word of mouth before it went on MLS, and got us lined up for an early tour so we had the chance to look at it before the open house. We liked it enough to get a pre-inspection on his advice (The market is too hot here for inspection contingencies, which is insane on a 100 year old house!). By the time the open house ended we had seen it twice and walked through with an inspector, which made us confident enough to bid. The agent talked to the seller's agent at length and figured out what was most important to them (close time over raw cash, because they were carrying two mortgages), and it turned out that the seller's agent knew our mortgage broker (who our agent originally referred us to) and trusted how fast he worked. We ended up beating over a dozen other offers, some of which were substantially higher. There's zero chance we'd have gotten this house (or anything competitive in DC) without a good agent, unless we were already in the industry and hyper connected, or bidding well into the six figures over ask. We looked at many places, and bid on two other houses we didn't win (post-covid market), so per hour he probably didn't make a crazy high salary, though in line with a good salesperson or manager. When we sold our old place, he helped advise us on pricing, set us up with good options for staging, arranged the floor plan maker and photographer, etc etc. For 3% of the sales fee I certainly could've done all that myself, but I know people who would've never gotten all that organized while also moving. We barely did even with the help! Now all that said, your median realtor in America just forwarding MLS listings and lockbox codes is probably not earning their share, but in competitive markets I think realtors can make a lot of sense.