What Does Your Realtor Do to Earn Their Compensation?

In How Real Estate Compensation Works I went through the forms and showed you that what you pay me is negotiable.

That article raises an obvious question and does not answer it:

What is the money actually buying?

This is my answer.

Not a job description for the industry, just what I do.

Before anything else, the plan

The first conversation is not about houses.

It is about what you are trying to do, when you need it done and what happens if it does not go to plan.

A seller with a job starting in Denver in eleven weeks has a different problem from somebody who will move whenever the right number arrives.

Pretending otherwise helps nobody.

Then I tell you what I think the market will actually do with your situation.

Sometimes that is not what you want to hear.

I would rather say it at your kitchen table than watch you find it out in escrow.

Getting the house ready

If you are selling

I walk the place and tell you which work I think is worth considering and which I would leave alone.

Not every dollar spent getting a house ready comes back.

Cleaning, hauling, paint touch-ups, yard work and fixing the things buyers will notice can matter more than replacing something expensive simply because it is old.

Out here there is a second list.

Wells, septic, outbuildings, easements and access all need checking before they surprise a buyer or lender.

If you are on a septic system and your Snohomish County sale closes on or after November 1, 2026, the seller generally has to complete the new property-transfer requirements before closing. I wrote the process up in The Septic Rule Starts November 1.

Then professional photography, because your house meets most buyers on a screen before anyone drives out to see it.

If you are buying

Talk to a lender before we look seriously at houses.

A lender's pre-approval helps define what the payment and purchase price actually look like for you and makes an offer easier for a seller to evaluate.

A pre-approval is not a final loan commitment. The file still has to make it through underwriting and the property has to qualify too.

After that I set up searches around the criteria that actually matter so you hear about the right properties when they appear.

When the inspection comes back

It nearly always finds something.

The question is what matters to your decision and what needs another expert's opinion.

I go through the report with you, help you understand what affects the transaction, and point out the questions that belong with the inspector, contractor, engineer, septic professional or another qualified expert.

Then we decide what the contract allows and what you want to ask for.

On an older rural property this can be the moment the deal either steadies or starts wobbling, and it is worth slowing down for.

“After that I set up searches around the criteria that actually matter so you hear about the right properties when they appear.”

Getting it in front of people

If you are selling

Your home goes into the Northwest Multiple Listing Service, which distributes listing information through participating brokerage, portal and data feeds.

The listing itself matters more than people think.

The written description, photographs, detail fields, acreage, outbuilding information and property features have to be entered correctly so the people searching for your kind of house can find it.

Then come showings and open houses, where appropriate, and useful feedback afterwards.

If several unrelated buyers keep pointing at the same issue, that is worth paying attention to.

You should hear it from me rather than discovering it after the listing has been sitting for a month.

If you are buying

I schedule the tours and I come with you.

Photographs hide grade, traffic, road noise, standing water, smells and access.

I spent twenty years driving these roads before I sold a house on one of them, and on acreage how the ground drains and how you get in and out of the driveway will matter long after the kitchen stops being interesting.

The offer

Price is one term out of many.

Timing, contingencies, financing, what conveys, closing costs and deadlines all change the strength and risk of the transaction.

Some of those terms can matter as much as a few thousand dollars on price.

I will tell you what I think the property is worth and show you the sales I used to get there so you can argue with the reasoning instead of taking my word for it.

Then we write it properly and negotiate it.

Once it is under contract

This is the part nobody sees and it is where a lot of the work lives.

Coordinating the lender, appraiser, inspector, title and escrow.

Chicago Title handles closing on many of my transactions.

Every deadline gets tracked because Washington purchase agreements contain deadlines and notice requirements that matter. Missing one can cost a party a contractual right and, depending on the circumstances, can put earnest money at risk.

When a buyer arrives without their own broker, more of the transaction coordination lands on my desk instead of being divided between two brokers.

I wrote about what that actually looks like in Working With an Unrepresented Buyer.

“This is the part nobody sees and it is where a lot of the work lives.”

Telling you what is happening

You will hear from me when there is news and when there is not.

Silence in a real estate transaction is not particularly relaxing.

I would rather call and say nothing has changed than let you spend a week wondering whether everybody disappeared.

I answer my own phone.

If you call me, it is me.

“You will hear from me when there is news and when there is not.”

Closing, and after

Near the end I go back through the file, confirm the pieces that need to be in place and coordinate signing and closing.

Then you get the keys, which is the part of the job that never gets old.

After that I am still here.

Contractors, lenders, septic companies, title questions, or a question about your property two years from now.

I live in Arlington and I am not going anywhere.

The bottom line

What you are paying for is somebody who knows the ground, watches the deadlines, tells you the truth about price and helps keep the moving parts moving in the same direction.

Whether that is worth what I charge is a fair thing to ask.

You should ask it.

If you want to see the record rather than the description, it is all on the Portfolio page.