132 Things Realtors Do For Buyers: The Full Checklist (Free PDF)

Somebody asked me at a sales meeting what a buyer's agent actually does all day, and the room went quiet in a way that told me nobody had a good answer ready. So I sat down with my own files and wrote out every task I have ever performed for a buyer. It came to 132.

I am Saad Jamil. I have closed more than 800 homes and over $500M in Northern Virginia, I am still listing and selling today, and I run real estate coaching for agents at Jamil Academy. Below is the whole list, grouped into the eight phases of a transaction. Every one of the 132 items is right here on the page, so a single button opens your browser print dialog and you can print the checklist or choose Save as PDF in one click, with no email required. There is also a tool that helps you cut it down to the version you can actually defend in front of a client.

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How to use this list without overselling yourself

There is a version of this article on a hundred other sites, and it is padding. Answer the phone, return the call, respond promptly, communicate regularly. That is one task written four ways.

I stripped that out. Every line below is a discrete piece of work with a beginning and an end, and I have done every one of them. Some hundreds of times. A few of them twice, in unusual situations, which is exactly why they belong on a superset and not on your personal list.

So here is how to work with it. Read all 132 with a pen and mark the ones you genuinely perform, not the ones you think you should. Most agents land between fifty and eighty when they are honest, because a good chunk of the list only appears on property types they never touch.

Then cut it down again. Out of your fifty to eighty, pick the ten to fifteen that most often save a client money or keep them out of a bad purchase. That short list is what you actually use in a consultation. The rest is background depth.

One warning before the list. Forms, disclosure rules, inspection customs, and closing procedure vary by state and sometimes by county, and I practice in Virginia, DC, Maryland, and West Virginia. Translate every line into your own jurisdiction before you say it to a client.

Phase 1: Before you ever show a home

Everything here happens before a single door gets unlocked, and it is the part buyers never see. It is also the part that decides whether the rest of the deal is calm or chaotic. If you want the long version of this conversation, I laid it out in my buyer consultation script, and the paperwork side lives in the buyer broker agreement script.

Seventeen items sit in this phase. On most deals I perform maybe eight of them, because a repeat client does not need the whole runway again.

• Return the first inquiry inside the hour and set a real appointment instead of trading texts for a week.
• Run a full buyer consultation before showing anything, so the search starts from criteria rather than curiosity.
• Separate the buyer's must haves from their nice to haves and write both down where the buyer can see them.
• Ask how long the buyer expects to hold the home and what would make them sell, because that changes what they should buy.
• Establish who will actually be on title and who has to sign, including a spouse who has never been at a meeting.
• Identify every decision maker who will weigh in, including a parent funding the gift and an out of state relative.
• Confirm the lender's pre-approval is underwritten, not just pre-qualified.
• Read the pre-approval letter for the conditions buried at the bottom, such as gift documentation or a home to sell.
• Refer two or three vetted lenders when the buyer has none, and never just one.
• Ask the lender what loan program the buyer is approved under and what that program will not accept in a property.
• Calculate the real monthly payment including taxes, insurance, HOA dues, and mortgage insurance, not principal and interest alone.
• Build a cash to close estimate covering down payment, closing costs, escrows, inspections, and deposits, then stress test it.
• Explain the earnest money deposit, who holds it, where it sits, and the specific ways a buyer can lose it.
• Walk the buyer through how buyer agent compensation works in your state and what they are agreeing to pay.
• Present and sign the written buyer representation agreement before the first showing, not in a parking lot later.
• Set the communication rules up front, meaning which channel, what response time, and who to call when you are unreachable.
• Give the buyer a written timeline of the whole process from first search to keys, so nothing later arrives as a surprise.

Phase 2: Search and property discovery

This is the phase agents most often undersell, because buyers assume the portal did it. The portal did not read the agent remarks, did not call the listing agent, and did not know the house on the next street is coming Thursday.

Sixteen items. A buyer who knows exactly what they want might trigger five. A relocating buyer with a flexible radius triggers every one.

• Build the MLS search on the parameters that actually matter, not just price and bedroom count.
• Set up an instant alert so the buyer sees new inventory the same hour it hits the market.
• Draw the search by map boundary instead of by zip code, because zip codes cut straight through neighborhoods.
• Screen every new listing yourself before it reaches the buyer, so their inbox stays worth opening.
• Read the confidential agent remarks on each listing, which routinely contain terms the public description leaves out.
• Check the listing history for prior expired, withdrawn, and canceled attempts on the same address.
• Check when the property last sold and for how much, and flag quick flips for a much closer look.
• Watch days on market across the whole neighborhood rather than one house, because that is where pricing pressure shows up.
• Call listing agents on new inventory to learn seller motivation, timing, and which terms actually matter to them.
• Work the coming soon and office exclusive inventory that never appears in a consumer portal search.
• Knock, mail, or call into a specific street when the buyer wants something the open market is not producing.
• Track expired and withdrawn listings that fit the buyer and approach those owners directly.
• Screen for sale by owner listings and settle the compensation question before the buyer ever sees the house.
• Adjust the search when the buyer's behavior contradicts their stated criteria, which it usually does by the third week.
• Tell the buyer honestly when their criteria and their budget do not exist in the same market.
• Keep a running short list of homes still in play so the buyer compares options instead of reacting to one.

Phase 3: Showings and touring

Showings are the visible part of the job, which is exactly why they get undervalued. Anyone can open a door. The work is what you notice while the buyer admires the island.

Sixteen items. A buyer who tours forty homes uses most of them repeatedly. A buyer who writes on the second house uses about six.

• Confirm every showing against the listing's actual access instructions rather than assuming a lockbox.
• Route the tour geographically so the buyer sees more homes and spends less of the day in the car.
• Preview a property alone when the buyer cannot get there and the timing will not wait for them.
• Arrive early enough to open the house, turn on lights, and confirm that access actually works.
• Confirm occupancy status before arriving so a tenant or an owner is not ambushed at the door.
• Point out what a buyer in love with the kitchen will not notice, such as grading, roof age, and panel type.
• Check the mechanical room on every single showing, meaning the furnace, the water heater, and the electrical panel.
• Look for water staining at ceilings, sill plates, and every basement penetration.
• Note the lot orientation and how light will behave at the hour the buyer is actually home.
• Test the cell signal inside the house, which buyers otherwise discover the week after they move in.
• Walk the property lines and identify what the buyer would actually be responsible for maintaining.
• Photograph or video specific defects so the buyer can revisit them without booking a second showing.
• Record structured notes on every home so the tenth showing can be compared fairly against the first.
• Debrief after each tour and translate the buyer's reactions into concrete search adjustments.
• Arrange second and third showings with the people who will actually live there, and with a contractor when needed.
• Cover open houses on the buyer's behalf and announce representation at the door so the buyer is protected.

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Phase 4: Research and due diligence on a property

This is where a buyer's agent earns the fee and nobody watches it happen. It is unglamorous, mostly reading, and it is the difference between a client who is glad they bought and a client calling a lawyer in eighteen months.

Seventeen items. Which ones apply depends entirely on the property. A condo triggers a different set than a house on well and septic.

• Pull comparable sales and analyze them yourself instead of accepting the listing agent's pricing story.
• Adjust the comparables for condition, lot, level of finish, and date of sale before telling a buyer what a home is worth.
• Verify the tax record square footage against the listing and reconcile any difference before writing.
• Confirm the assessed value and current tax bill, and check whether an exemption is about to disappear at settlement.
• Check zoning and permitted use for anything the buyer intends to do beyond living there quietly.
• Pull the permit history and identify finished space that was never permitted or inspected.
• Confirm the flood zone designation and price what flood insurance would actually cost.
• Check the HOA or condo dues, the assessment history, and whether a special assessment is pending.
• Read the condo association's reserve position and delinquency rate, because lenders care and buyers do not know to ask.
• Confirm the condo project is warrantable for the buyer's loan type before they spend money on an offer.
• Verify school assignment through the district itself rather than trusting a listing or a portal.
• Check for planned road, transit, or development projects nearby that will change the street within a few years.
• Look for well, septic, oil tank, or private road issues in the areas where they are common.
• Confirm exactly what conveys and what does not, including appliances, mounted televisions, and rented equipment.
• Request the seller's disclosures from the listing agent and read every page before the offer is written.
• Research resale history and price trends on that specific street, not the metro area average.
• Tell the buyer plainly when the property is a bad buy, even when saying so costs you the deal.

Phase 5: Writing and negotiating the offer

The offer is not a price. It is a package of terms, deadlines, and risk allocation, and every line is negotiable if you know what the other side wants.

Seventeen items. In a slow market with one offer on the table you may use nine. In a multiple offer situation you use all seventeen in about four hours.

• Establish the buyer's true walk away number before emotion enters the negotiation.
• Call the listing agent before writing to learn what the seller values besides price.
• Find out how many offers are genuinely in hand and whether any are already under review.
• Set the offer price against your own analysis rather than anchoring to the list price.
• Choose a closing date that works for the seller's move and the buyer's lender at the same time.
• Set earnest money at a level that signals seriousness without exposing the buyer unnecessarily.
• Draft every contingency deliberately, meaning financing, appraisal, inspection, home sale, and association review.
• Set contingency deadlines the buyer can realistically meet, then calendar every one of them the day the contract ratifies.
• Explain in writing what each waived contingency actually costs the buyer if the deal goes sideways.
• Write any appraisal gap provision with a stated dollar cap instead of an open ended promise.
• Confirm the buyer has documented funds for any gap or waiver before it goes into the contract.
• Assemble the offer package with the pre-approval, proof of funds, and lender contact so it is credible on arrival.
• Have the lender call the listing agent to vouch for the buyer, which moves more offers than agents admit.
• Present the offer directly when the listing side allows it rather than emailing a file into a void.
• Negotiate the counters on terms as well as price, including possession, repairs, and closing cost credits.
• Confirm full ratification of every signed page and check the initials and dates on each one.
• Deliver the ratified contract and the deposit to the correct parties inside the deadlines the contract states.

Phase 6: Under contract, inspections and repairs

Ratified is not sold. From here the job turns into project management against a calendar that does not care how busy you are. The full operational version of this phase is in my contract to close checklist.

Sixteen items. A new construction purchase skips several of these and adds others that do not appear on this list at all, which is exactly why 132 is a superset and not a script.

• Build the contract to close calendar the day the contract ratifies and share it with the buyer and the lender.
• Order the home inspection immediately, because the clock runs whether or not anyone has booked it.
• Coordinate inspection access with the listing side and confirm the utilities will be on.
• Recommend the specialist inspections the house calls for, such as sewer scope, radon, chimney, structural, or pest.
• Attend the inspection and stay for the walkthrough of findings instead of reading the report afterward.
• Read the full inspection report yourself, including the photographs and the pages most people skip.
• Sort the report into safety issues, functional defects, deferred maintenance, and cosmetic noise.
• Get repair estimates from real contractors so the negotiation runs on numbers instead of adjectives.
• Advise the buyer on which items are worth fighting for and which ones will cost them the house.
• Write the repair or credit request in contract language, with specific scope and a deadline.
• Negotiate the seller's response and know when a credit serves the buyer better than a repair.
• Verify that any agreed repair was actually performed by someone licensed to perform it.
• Collect receipts, permits, and warranty paperwork for every completed repair before settlement.
• Order the well, septic, or termite inspections the loan or the jurisdiction requires.
• Advise the buyer clearly and in writing when the correct move is to terminate under the inspection contingency.
• Deliver a written termination inside the deadline and pursue the earnest money release when a deal dies.

Phase 7: Under contract, appraisal, lender, title, and insurance

Three separate professionals now hold pieces of your closing, and none will call you when something goes wrong. They call after it has gone wrong. The job is to check before that.

Seventeen items. A cash buyer removes six instantly. A VA loan on a fifty year old house adds work a conventional loan never touches.

• Confirm the lender has ordered the appraisal and find out the date it is scheduled.
• Give the appraiser the comparable sales and the improvement list that support the contract price.
• Meet the appraiser at the property when access or context actually matters to the outcome.
• Track the appraisal result and read the conditions attached to it, not just the number on the front page.
• Negotiate the shortfall when the appraisal comes in low, using the contract's own language rather than improvising.
• Order a reconsideration of value with supporting comparables when the appraisal is defensibly wrong.
• Monitor the loan file weekly and confirm each condition is cleared instead of assuming someone else checked.
• Warn the buyer in writing not to change jobs, open credit, or move money during the contract period.
• Confirm the rate lock expiration lines up with the closing date and flag any mismatch early enough to fix.
• Order the title search and review the commitment for easements, liens, and exceptions.
• Chase title problems down early, including unreleased liens, estate issues, and judgments against a prior owner.
• Confirm survey requirements and order one when encroachments or boundary lines are in question.
• Explain owner's title insurance and what it protects against, without treating it as a formality.
• Make sure the buyer binds homeowners insurance early enough that a claims history problem is still survivable.
• Flag insurance problems specific to that property, such as prior water claims, roof age, or outdated wiring.
• Confirm the association resale package was delivered and that the buyer's review period was honored.
• Verify wire instructions by phone using a number you already had, and warn the buyer about wire fraud in writing.

Phase 8: Closing and after the sale

The last two weeks are where sloppy files become delayed closings and careful ones become referrals. Most of this is verification, which is boring right up until the day it saves the settlement.

Sixteen items. The final four happen after you have been paid, which tells a client what kind of agent they hired.

• Confirm the closing date, time, and location, and make sure every party is working from the same one.
• Review the closing disclosure line by line against the contract before the buyer ever sees it.
• Question every fee on the settlement statement that does not match what was agreed in writing.
• Confirm the buyer's funds are wired or certified in the exact amount the settlement agent requires.
• Confirm the seller payoff, credits, and prorations are calculated correctly and in the buyer's favor where the contract says so.
• Schedule and attend the final walkthrough with the utilities still on.
• Verify at the walkthrough that agreed repairs were completed and that everything which conveyed is still in the house.
• Handle whatever the walkthrough turns up, including a holdback escrow when the seller cannot fix it in time.
• Confirm utility transfers are scheduled for the day of closing so the house is not cold and dark that night.
• Attend the closing and read the documents alongside the buyer rather than letting them sign blind.
• Confirm the deed and loan documents show the buyer's name and vesting exactly as intended.
• Collect every key, remote, code, fob, and mailbox key, and confirm what is missing before anyone leaves the table.
• Confirm the deed is recorded and that the buyer's file holds the final signed package.
• Deliver a complete closing file the buyer can hand to an accountant, settlement statement included.
• Follow up after the move about warranty registrations, tax assessment appeals, and the homestead filing where it applies.
• Provide vetted contractor referrals afterward and keep answering the phone years after the commission was paid.

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Buyer Value Checklist Builder

Reading 132 items straight through is useful once. Turning them into your own list is what changes a consultation. This tool holds a representative 48 of the 132, six from each phase, and it does one job: it counts what you tick and prints your selections back as a clean sheet you can screenshot or print.

Be honest with the boxes. Ticking something you do not really do is how agents promise work they cannot deliver, which is a worse problem than a short list. It collects nothing and stores nothing.

What most agents notice is that their selections cluster in two phases and thin out badly in a third. The thin phase is usually research and due diligence, or appraisal and title, because those are the parts a busy agent quietly hands to a coordinator and stops thinking about. That is worth knowing, because work you delegate is still work you are responsible for.

Why the honest number on one deal is closer to forty

I want to be clear about this, because inflated task counts are damaging how agents talk about their fee.

A good buyer's agent performs around forty distinct things on a typical transaction. That is the honest number and it is an impressive one. Forty separate pieces of professional work, most invisible to the client, several capable of saving that client five figures.

So why 132? Because deals are not typical. A first time buyer on an FHA loan buying a fifty year old townhouse in an association triggers a different set of tasks than a cash buyer purchasing new construction, and both differ again from a relocating client buying sight unseen.

Add up every task across all of those scenarios and you get 132. Any single deal draws maybe a third of them. That is not a weaker claim, it is a more defensible one, and defensible is what you need when a buyer asks what they are paying for.

There is a practical reason to care. The moment you tell a buyer you do 132 things for them, a reasonable person starts checking. They will find eight items that obviously did not happen on their purchase, because they bought a condo and you listed well and septic work. Now you are defending a number instead of describing your value.

Say forty. Show ten. Keep 132 in the back of your head so that when a client asks something specific, you already have the answer. That is the difference between depth and padding, and buyers hear it.

It also helps to know how you are actually paid before you defend what you are paid for, which I covered separately in how real estate agents get paid.

How to put your short list in front of a buyer

The list is not the deliverable. It is your source material. What a buyer needs is one page, grouped by outcome, that they can hold while you talk.

Group your selections under three headings that describe results rather than activities. I use do not overpay, do not buy a problem, and do not lose the deal. Every task fits under one of those three, and a buyer understands all three instantly without any explanation of what an appraisal reconsideration is.

Then attach one real story to each heading. Not a hypothetical, a real address with the details changed. The stucco house where the inspection found sheathing rot behind a perfect looking wall. The appraisal you got reconsidered with three comparables the appraiser missed. The contract you told a client to walk away from.

Stories are what people remember. Counts are what people argue with. I have never had a buyer challenge a story, and I have had plenty challenge a number.

Practice it out loud until you can say every line without reading. If you cannot deliver a line naturally, it does not belong on your page. That is the real test, and it is why borrowing somebody else's list never works.

Deliver it before the fee comes up, not after. Once a number is on the table, everything you say afterward sounds like justification. Said first, the same words are simply a description of the job.

Five ways agents misuse a list like this

Reading it aloud. Nobody has ever been persuaded by a recitation. If you are on item nineteen and the buyer is checking their phone, you lost them at item four.

Claiming tasks you do not perform. Every item you claim is a promise. Claim the sewer scope, then skip it on a house with mature trees over a clay line, and you will learn exactly how expensive that promise was.

Leading with effort instead of outcome. Buyers do not buy hours. They buy not overpaying, not buying a problem, and not losing the house. Translate every task into which of those three it protects.

Using it as a fee defense after the fact. A deliverables list produced after a buyer questions your compensation reads as defensive. Presented first, it reframes the conversation before there is anything to object to.

Treating it as finished. Your list should change as your business does. Mine looks nothing like it did in 2012, because the transaction changed and so did the parts clients worry about. Review it once a year.

Frequently asked questions

What are the 132 things realtors do for buyers?

The 132 tasks are a master superset of the work a buyer's agent can perform, grouped into eight phases: preparation before the first showing, search and discovery, showings, research and due diligence, writing and negotiating the offer, inspections and repairs, appraisal and lender and title and insurance, and closing and after the sale. No single deal uses all 132.

Does a buyer's agent really do 132 things on every deal?

No, and any agent who claims that is overselling. On a typical transaction a buyer's agent performs roughly forty of these tasks. Which forty depends on the property type, the loan, the market, and the client. The value of the 132 item list is that it is the inventory you cut down from, not a script you read aloud.

Should I show the 132 item list to a buyer?

No. Handing a client a list of 132 bullet points reads as padding and invites them to argue with the items that do not apply. Select ten to fifteen items that genuinely describe your process, rewrite each one in your own words, and speak to them without notes. A short list you can defend beats a long list you cannot.

Is there a free PDF of the 132 things realtors do for buyers?

Yes, and there is no email gate on it. All 132 items are published right here on this page, organized by the same eight phases used in this article. The Print or save as PDF button opens your browser print dialog, so you can print the checklist or choose Save as PDF and keep your own copy in one click, instantly, without handing over an email address. Once you have it, mark which items you personally perform, then cut it down into your own shorter deliverables list.

How many things does a buyer's agent do compared to a listing agent?

The commonly cited figure for the listing side is 184 steps. The buyer side has never had an equivalent standard list, which is part of why buyer agent value became so hard to explain. The 132 tasks here are the buyer side answer, drawn from actual transaction files.

What is the fastest way to turn this list into a value conversation?

Pick the eight to twelve tasks that most often save your clients money or protect them from a bad purchase, group them into three plain outcomes such as do not overpay, do not buy a problem, and do not lose the deal, then put one real story behind each group. Outcomes and stories persuade. Task counts do not.

Do these 132 tasks apply outside my state?

The structure applies everywhere, but the specifics do not. Contract forms, disclosure requirements, inspection customs, attorney involvement, and closing procedure vary by state and sometimes by county. Treat the list as a prompt to write down your own version using your own forms and your own local practice.

This checklist reflects buyer side practice in Virginia, DC, Maryland, and West Virginia as of 2026. Contract forms, disclosure obligations, inspection customs, and closing procedure vary by state and by jurisdiction, and not every task applies to every transaction or every property type. Educational content for real estate professionals only. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for your broker's policies or your own state contract.