At the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, if you’re buying or selling a house in Orange County today, you’re likely working with a Realtor. What might not be so obvious is that working with a Realtor is more like a marriage than you might think.

If you have any doubt at all, take a look at these five stages of the buyer/seller-Realtor relationship and the similarities to courting behavior leading to a committed relationship.

1. Courting: What usually begins a relationship is a combination of attraction, the time and effort to get to know one another, and the sacrifice of time away from other people and distractions to spend time together.

When it comes to how you begin a relationship with a Realtor, it’s no different. It starts with you toying with the idea of buying or selling. Then, you scour the Internet – isn’t Realtor.com the equivalent to Match.com? It may begin with an attraction to a photo of a house and a deliriously compelling description, combined with the figures – the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage. You like the look of the person next to the photo of the house, so you send an email or make a phone call. No commitments from either side. No contracts. Just testing the waters. How fast did she call back? Did she answer my text?

2. Dating exclusively: This is the next step in a relationship that is going well. You make a choice to be exclusive. No more going back to the pond to pick another partner. You funnel all of your attention on that one person. When you see a sign on a house, you don’t call the number on the sign, you call your Realtor to get the scoop. When you’re at an open house, you let the Realtor know you are already in a relationship with another Realtor. An open house is so much like a singles bar. But that’s another story.

3. Engaged to be married: Much like dating exclusively, except now there’s an intent to tie the knot. Now you go into the open house with a stack of your Realtor’s cards – an outward and visible sign of your intent to be loyal to her and her alone. A shield as big as a 3-carat solitaire that you’ve made a choice and you’re sticking with it. You disconnect your automatic email updates from the four other Realtors you were hanging out with before. And you put all of your effort into planning for the big event: buying a house, selling your house, or both concurrently.

4. Marriage: This is the legal consummation of your intent to be loyal to one another, through good times and bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, ’til death do you part. You’ve signed a listing contract, you’ve signed a purchase contract, and you’re loyal to one another. You consult your Realtor exclusively – you’re officially on the same team and working side by side.

5. Cheating: With the national divorce rate in the 50 percent range, do you have any doubt that there’s some hanky panky that goes on in real estate relationships, too? You slip up and call another Realtor whose name and photo you saw on Zillow. You fall under the spell of the luscious pocket listing the Realtor at the open house dangles in front of your eyes in a hypnotic motion. The temptation was too much for you to resist, and you’re suddenly in someone else’s car.

Consider being loyal to your Realtor once you’ve made the initial commitment. Your relationship only has to last as long as it takes to complete the purchase or sale. Then you’re free to start dating again.for more details please click this link Whittier Real Estate