Ok. So first, I'm an attorney. I'm paid to negotiate and work on difficult and complex cases and have done multiple "land transaction" and property law cases. I didn't believe that I needed a realtor. However, Ann was a friend of a friend and I trusted her enough to see if she knew things I didn't.She did. She know a LOT more than me. In the end, a GOOD realtor is invaluable. We could have used zillow or whoever to go and set our own appointments. But we wouldn't have known about who the builders were and what things to watch out for in the homes they built. We could have toured homes and looked to see what we liked or didn't like. But we wouldn't have had a constant updated list of those emailed to us every day with someone available to give us thoughts on them whenever we needed.In the end we saw somewhere around 13-14 homes, and looked at easily over a hundred online over about a year and a half to two year period. Ann was patient and when we found the one we both wanted, she helped us through EVERYTHING. Even helping us with finding the right lender for us (interest rate lower than 3%!) and helping us keep our cool when things got frustrating during underwriting. I honestly can't say enough about how impressed I was with her, and how wrong I was in thinking we didn't need a realtor. She gets 6 stars out of 5 in my book.