What is a Realtor

a real estate broker, real estate agent

and a real estate salesperson

What is a Realtor? If you are for sale by owner, they will come!

They will phone, ring your bell, attend your open houses, drop flyers in your mail box and badger you to list your house.

They have a mission. The mission is to list your house.

You have a mission. Your mission is to "sell my house for sale by owner."

Clarification

If you will bear with me for a moment, I'd like to explain something about "real estate agents". Over and over you will see the word "realtor" used, especially on websites.

The main purpose of this page on what is a Realtor, is to explain some of the differences of a Realtor vs. what is a real estate broker, an agent and a salesperson, plus why you should not be nasty to them when you are for sale by owner.

Types of Realtors that may Arrive at Your Door

Real Estate Fees and Commissions

MLS Flat Fee while For Sale by Owner

Finding a Realtor to Represent YOU

Go Full MLS while still For Sale by Owner

Understanding Real Estate Agency

Return to Home Page

In United States and Canada the above words actually refer to different groups of people. Let me explain.

• What is a Realtor - These people are members of NAR (National Association of Realtor ) in the United States, or members of CREA (Canadian Real Estate Association) in Canada.

As members, they have made a commitment to follow a set of rules and regulations, both professional and ethical. Are the rules followed by most Realtors? More on that later.

• The word Realtor is a registered trademark that is suppose be either be spelled REALTOR ® or Realtor ® . Using just the capitol R is acceptable, at least in Canada, last time I checked.

• realtor - The improper use of the registered trademark word Realtor or REALTOR.

On this website, I will be using the spelling as Realtor and MLS (Multiple Listing Service). It is my opinion that NAR and CREA have lost the protection of their trademark on the Internet, due to not protecting that trademark. I will respect the capitol R in Realtor and use MLS in capitol letters as well.

All Realtors are real estate sales people but, not all real estate agents or salespeople, are Realtors.

• What is a real estate broker - The real estate broker actually holds the real estate license to list and sell real estate. Everyone else with a real estate office work as salespeople under the real estate broker's license.

- side note: Some lawyers are also licensed as a real estate broker.

• What are real estate salespeople - All people that have a real estate license to sell real property and are either a licensed broker therefore with one of the real estate "agencies", or sell real property under a licensed broker. These people may or may not be Realtors.
  

• What is a real estate agent - This is a bit murky as the term is also thrown around loosely. I'm not sure for the United States or other countries but, it was decided in Canada that the term real estate agent was reserved for those that held the broker license with one of the real estate agencies. These people may or may not be Realtors.
  

All other salespeople that worked under that broker license were actually referred to as, salespeople.

Now that I have totally bored most of you, about what is a Realtor  :-) let's move on to more important matters shall we?

One more thing about what is a Realtor OK? I've noticed in many other countries around the world, that they also use the word Realtor, often spelled "realtor", to describe a licensed real estate sales person.

I have no idea if these countries have their own associations like NAR or CREA, so I will not attempt to step into that area.

Don't Shoot Yourself in the Foot!

We will be covering many more lessons after this page on what is a Realtor and how you can use them to your advantage, but lets start here with a common error that for sale by owners sometimes make. Here it is folks.

• Don't be nasty to those salespeople!

• You may have had a bad experience in the past.

• You may be annoyed because everyday they are approaching you to list with them.

• It doesn't matter. Be nice! You may be able to use one of them later to your advantage.

Hey, if I can do it, you can do it. Don't know what I'm talking about? Go to My Story

Being nasty to real estate salespeople accomplishes nothing and may hurt you later.

You are Still in Control

Just because you are nice to the salespeople that come calling, doesn't mean you have to co-operate with them.

Here are a couple ideas of what you might say.

• Thank you for stopping by Linda, I'll keep your card handy in case I need you. In the meantime, we plan on selling for sale by owner.

• Thank you for stopping by Linda, If you have an interested buyer to show our house to, I'm sure we could work something out.

• Thank you for stopping by Linda but if we do list, we will be listing with my brother Sid. In the meantime if you have a buyer, we'd be happy to try and work something out with you.

You could change those up in your own way for your own situation, but you get the idea, be nice......and smile.

For More Information about Using Realtors

Please select one of the thumbnail photo links further up this page.

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