Whether it's a big or small purchase, consumers today look for value. Airline passengers want low fares. Hotel guests want free parking, breakfast and Internet access. Car buyers want a dependable vehicle with lots of standard features that gets good gas mileage. It's no different for today's home buyers and sellers. Facing a tough real estate market, both buyers and sellers alike are looking for ways to add value to their home buying or selling experience. It's not surprising that, according to a recent survey by J.D. Power and Associates, extra services provided by real estate companies-such as inspections, appraisals and legal and moving company recommendations-have become increasingly important to home buyers and sellers.

"In a tight market, every aspect of service offered will be scrutinized very closely," said Jim Howland, senior director of the real estate and construction practice at J.D. Power and Associates. "For this reason, it is critical for real estate companies to promote the value that they bring to buyers and sellers, not only in any additional services they offer, but also in their agents and operations."

To find out which national real estate companies do the best job of satisfying customers, J.D. Power and Associates analyzed more than 3,100 evaluations from 2,801 respondents who bought or sold a home between April 2007 and June 2008. The 2009 Home Buyer/Seller Study, now in its second year, measures customer satisfaction of home buyers and sellers with the largest national real estate companies. Overall satisfaction is determined by examining three factors for the home-buying experience:

• agent (47%)
• office (28%)
• package of additional services (25%)

Four factors are examined for the home-selling experience:

• agent (34%)
• marketing (34%)
• office (17%)
• package of additional services (15%)

For both buyers and sellers, the agent is still the most important driver of overall satisfaction. However, the importance of agents has declined substantially from 2008, while the importance of additional services has increased considerably-by 12 percentage points among buyers and 8 percentage points among sellers. In addition, actual usage of many of these services has decreased from 2008, likely due to cutbacks made by real estate companies in response to a depressed market.