Residential specialists help people to purchase, sell, or lease real property. They usually only work within a single market and must have a comprehensive knowledge of the neighborhoods, schools, and general community within their primary area. The job involves showing clients prospective properties as well as managing the paperwork for the final transaction.
Buying and selling property is often more complicated than it seems at the outset. A residential specialist works with people in the market for housing and helps them to both find what they are looking for and get a competitive deal. This often involves showing potential purchasers pictures of houses, walking them through models and homes for sale, and helping them make offers.
When a buyer is ready to make a purchase or tender an offer on a house, his or her residential specialist is usually the one to actually make the first bid. Housing markets work differently in different places, but they usually function on a system of offers and counter-offers and involve a fair amount of bargaining. Residential specialists are usually trained in negotiation and often take the lead when it comes to settling on a final price. If the owner accepts the offer, the specialist will oversee the paperwork and will ensure that it accurately sets out all of the relevant terms.
Residential specialists also help homeowners looking to sell their property. The majority of real estate sales transactions actually happen between two specialists: one representing the buyer and the other the seller. Most specialists have a better grasp on property values and market selling expectations than owners do, and can be a tremendous asset when it comes to setting up a pricing scheme and handling offer requests. Specialists who are savvy in the marketplace are often able to secure a far better deal than buyers and sellers could negotiate on their own.
Most of the time, the work of a residential specialist is very similar to that of a realtor, housing agent, or real estate agent — and in some places the titles are synonymous. Different jurisdictions have different conventions when it comes to how realty professionals must be titled. In the United States, a real estate professional can only be called a residential specialist if he or she is certified by the Council of Residential Specialists (CRS). CRS is a national organization of the U.S.’s top-performing realtors. It issues residential specialist certification to realtors who meet certain sales and education prerequisites, and is generally considered quite exclusive.
Earning CRS certification does not usually alter how a real estate agent performs on the job. The credential may entitle a realtor to command a higher commission, however, and often leads to more lucrative referrals. Certified residential specialists also may have access to more competitive listings and sales databases than other real estate agents in the community. This enables them to more competitively match clients with appropriate homes.