What Is a Listing Agent and Do You Need One to Sell Your Home?
When you’re selling your home, a listing agent is your main representative and contact. “Selling agent” is actually another term for “buyer’s agent.”
If you’ve never sold a home — or if it’s been a few years since you went through that process — the language of the real estate world might seem intimidating. Between acronyms such as MLS and terms like “broker” and “agent” that people use interchangeably, it’s enough to make you want to Google whatever you can before you put your house on the market.
Let’s lend a hand by defining a listing agent. When you’re selling your home, a listing agent is your main representative and contact. In fact, in 2024, 90% of sellers chose to use a listing agent, data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR) shows.
“A listing agent is somebody that exclusively represents the seller’s best interests. Their ultimate goal is to sell the seller’s home for the most money in the least amount of time,” says Tom Heuser, a top real estate agent in the Las Vegas, Nevada, area who sells homes 40% faster than the average agent there.
No wonder this person is a valuable guide. Here’s a more detailed look at what a listing agent does — and how one can help you sell your home for the best price.
Step One: Talk to an Expert Listing Agent
It takes just two minutes to match you with the top-performing listing agents in your market. Our data shows that the top 5% of agents in the U.S. sell homes quicker and for as much as 10% more than the average agent.
Listing agent vs selling agent: A detailed comparison
In real estate terms, a “selling agent” actually represents the buyer. That sounds confusing, right? Wouldn’t the selling agent represent the seller?
Although we conversationally refer to a “seller’s agent” or listing agent as someone who represents the seller, the real estate world views a “selling agent” differently. A “selling agent” (sometimes called a “cooperating agent”) is any agent who sells a property, the NAR says. In a sense, the “selling” agent may not list the property but is helping the property sell by bringing a buyer to the table. The key is in the suffix: –er versus –ing.
Because they’re on the opposite side of a real estate transaction, selling agents have opposing goals — mainly, to help the buyer purchase a home for the least amount of money and to negotiate so that the current owner or seller handles certain repairs, again saving the buyer money.
