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The Role of Agents and Property Managers in Real Estate

 

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Property managers are different from real estate agents (realtors). These two roles are interwoven in the areas of real estate dealings on behalf of the landlord, and they earn fees or percentages as commissions. However, they differ when it comes to core duties.

A property management firm handles finding, showing prospective tenants through the property, screening, vetting, and selecting prospective tenants on behalf of the landlord for residential and commercial properties. They draft tenancy agreement contracts, go for rent drives, handle tenants' complaints/eviction, and mediate landlord and tenant relationship. They also carry out periodic inspections of the property, cleaning and repairing damages between tenants' turnover, and coordinate periodic maintenance, repairs, and upgrades of properties. They take all these issues in their stride for the owners and ensure they seamlessly manage the property.

On the other hand, real estate agents help property owners establish a comparable market value for their properties, list properties for rent or sale, conduct open houses and rent or sell given properties. They can also source properties for buyers if employed by a property seeker to help look for properties that meet their specific requirements and location. Whether buying or selling a property, they can guide their clients through making an offer, vetting the terms and conditions of the contract, and closing the deal. Real estate agents know the locality very well and know a lot of real estate investors through their networking thus use this to their advantage by comparing the price of several properties within the locality, marketing it to known real estate moguls, and bringing in other real estate agent to help facilitate the buying and selling of properties. They also do their jobs by employing the services of a photographer who helps to organize good photographs to be used on various advertising websites and for presentation purposes to property seekers who are not opportune to visit the property for inspection.

Generally, real estate managers take between 5% and 10% of the rent for their management fees. The more delegated duties from the landlord, the higher the fees.  Real estate agents enlisted for buying or selling a property can take between 2.5% and 5% as commission, but this value is negotiable depending on the sales price. The higher the sales price the lower the commission and vice versa. 

Property managers can also decide to work as real estate agents if they have the requirements. However, most real estate agents prefer not to venture into real estate management because they believe it is time-consuming and takes them away from their main job of buying, selling and renting out properties. 

So we can simply say real estate agent core job is to buy and sell properties for their clients while real estate firms manage properties on behalf of the landlord, but their responsibility overlap in the renting out of properties. 

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