{"id":20665,"date":"2025-10-07T04:19:56","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T11:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/?p=20665"},"modified":"2025-10-13T17:24:17","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T00:24:17","slug":"things-to-do-before-hiring-a-real-estate-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/things-to-do-before-hiring-a-real-estate-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"10 Things to Do Before Hiring a Real Estate Agent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are a million and one reasons why it might be the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/should-i-sell-my-house\/\">right time to sell your home<\/a>, but whatever the motivation, almost all sellers want their house <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/pricing-your-home-to-sell\/\">sold at a good price<\/a> and relatively quickly. Working with a property expert is important, but you must take care of some things before hiring a real estate agent, so you can make your home stand out and succeed.<\/p>\n<p>We asked top-rated professionals what they wish sellers would do (and not do) before contacting them. Here is their list of the top 10 things to do before hiring a real estate agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<div class=\"geo-cta widget-cta widget-cta--content     widget-cta--dark widget-cta--dark-blue-gradient\">\n    <div class=\"widget-element--content\">\n        <div class=\"widget-element--content-header\">\n            <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"homelight logo\" class=\"widget-element--logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/wp-content\/themes\/ccprototypev5\/images\/logo-small-cta.png\" width=\"106\" height=\"25\" \/>\n        <\/div>\n        \n                <h3 class=\"cta-headline widget--bold\">Get a Home Value Estimate As You Prepare to Sell<\/h3>\n                        <p>HomeLight&#8217;s tool takes into account recent comparable sales records, local market trends, and your home last sale&#8217;s price to provide a preliminary estimate of home value in under two minutes.<\/p>\n        \n                <div class=\"widget-element--buttons\">\n            <a data-type=\"In Content CTA\" href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/simple-home-value\/quiz?#\/qaas=0\/\" class=\"cta-click-track widget-element--button\">Get Estimate<\/a>\n        <\/div>\n                    <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div id=\"section--1\" data-toc-header=\"Determine your selling goals\" data-toc-type=\"head\"><\/div>\n<h2>1. Determine your selling goals<\/h2>\n<p>Before you can even think about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/hiring-a-realtor-to-sell-your-home\/\">hiring a real estate agent<\/a>, you need to map out your selling goals. This involves determining the price range you\u2019re willing to accept offers from. Shannan Laudet, a top-rated <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/bremerton-wa\/top-real-estate-agents\">real estate agent in Bremerton, Washington<\/a>, advises homeowners to have an offer range that they consider an acceptable offer for their home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHaving a price range in mind is always helpful because it helps us understand where you\u2019re at,\u201d she says. If the price range is unreasonable, the agent can suggest a range that is more in line with local market conditions.<\/p>\n<p>Along with the price range, you\u2019ll want to think about what timeframe you\u2019re comfortable with and how that might impact the ultimate sale price. Are you willing to accept a lower offer for a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/what-is-a-quick-sale\/\">quick sale<\/a>, or do you want to hold out for the best price? Are you willing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/how-to-negotiate-when-selling-a-house\/\">negotiate<\/a>, or are you firm on the price?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Putting your home on the market? Read this guide, so you won\u2019t forget these important things to do before hiring a real estate agent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":48161,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[320,233],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-add-value","category-preparing-to-sell"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.0 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>10 Things to Do Before Hiring a Real Estate Agent<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Putting your home on the market? Read this guide, so you won\u2019t forget these important things to do before hiring a real estate agent.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/things-to-do-before-hiring-a-real-estate-agent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"10 Things to Do Before Hiring a Real Estate Agent\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Putting your home on the market? Read this guide, so you won\u2019t forget these important things to do before hiring a real estate agent.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.homelight.com\/blog\/things-to-do-before-hiring-a-real-estate-agent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"HomeLight Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/gohomelight\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-10-07T11:19:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-14T00:24:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/hl-blog.homelight.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Untitled-design-8-min.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"564\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Evette Zalvino\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ChampionEvette\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@gohomelight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Evette Zalvino\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"10 Things to Do Before Hiring a Real Estate Agent","description":"Putting your home on the market? 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