Realtor question

[bunnymendelbaum]

My friend and I were talking about this today. She suggested we get a realtor to come to our house and give us their advice on what we need to do/not do and maybe a $$ listing estimate.

If we did this, would they want us to sign a contract or would we be obliged to use them as our realtor?
Could we just pay them for their time?

I ask because often houses in our neighborhood sell via word of mouth without a realtor and I'd hate to get advice and then eliminate that possibility. 6% of our house's value is quite a big chunk of change and I'm cheap.

[bunnymendelbaum]

Awesome!
Thanks.

[SusanBAnthony]

We did it before we listed our house (didn't know for sure at the time if we were moving or not but we wanted to get an idea). No cost, no commitment.