Home Selling Tips: How to Pick A Realtor

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This blog post for home selling tips has to do with how to pick a realtor.  When you're in the market to sell your home, knowing that there's over 11,000 realtors in the Austin MLS, to choose from, we thought it was important for you to go to those meetings equipped with some good questions to help you dig deep and find out what's really behind the curtain with your agent. So for example, one of the first questions to ask is,

Are you a full time real estate agent?

'Are you a full time real estate agent?'  The truth is, part-time real estate agents are not going to have the time to provide you with the service that you need on multiple levels. There's a lot that happens in listing your home and attracting quality buyers that already show up with a value-oriented mindset about your property.  So the first question should be, Are you working full-time at this job? Would you want a surgeon that's just part-time?  Or somebody that's fully engaged in that profession? It's the same story.

How long have you been selling real estate?

Secondly, how long have you been selling real estate?  The truth is, you might have an agent show up at your door that's been in it for two weeks or for twenty years. So you really want to dig deep and find out what kind of experience is there. And you also ought to have some questions in mind about if that 20 year veteran has really had twenty years of expansive and cumulative experience or the same year of experience 20 times.

 How many homes do you sell in a year?

Third, how many homes do you sell in a year? You might be shocked to find the national average, according to NAR, is about 7 homes per realtor per year.  So, when you work with an agent that sells a lot of units in a year, what you get is a much more expansive base of experience and an ability to cope with different situations as they arise.  Real estate can be unpredictable, and somebody who's been there and seen it is much more advantageous than somebody who just sells the average number per year.

Do you have a list of references?

And the last one for today, do you have a list of references we can call?  Testimonials are great, but one or two sentences are not gonna really tell you much.  If you really wanna dig deep--if you were hiring for a position at your company, you would probably seek references and ask about the person's character if you're gonna be working with that person long-term.   The same idea applies to real estate.  It's not a bad idea to call people and say 'I'm considering hiring this person, what was your experience?'  And I think you'll find people are willing to be open with you about that.

Well, look for more in the days ahead.  We love to provide home selling tips and for more information, please be sure to visit www.russ-phillips.com.