When you tell friends and family you’re going to buy or sell a home, and they ask, “Why are you working through a real estate agent when you can just use the internet,” how will you respond? Your first answer should be to have a professional handle all the paperwork — disclosure forms, inspection reports, deeds and titles, settlement statements — they’ll get the picture.

You could describe your representative’s knowledge about the area — they know the property values! You want to know that the neighborhood matches your needs and that homes there hold their value.

Tell them there’s more to marketing than websites, and that your agent will more likely find a buyer instead through their relationships with other agents and past and current clients. Not to mention the fact that you don’t want complete strangers visiting your home, and you’re more comfortable knowing that your representative screened and qualified all potential visitors to your home.

And once you’re on either side of an offer, you trust a professional’s ability and their experience to help you negotiate successfully when it comes to terms like price, financing, inspections and repairs, and other contractual commitments in the transaction that is probably the largest investment you’ll make.

Your final argument might be that most people may buy or sell a handful of homes in their lifetime, but your agent has been successful hundreds of time, on both sides of transaction. Case closed!