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We are in a city of about 25,000 people. We have only lived here for 1 1/2 years. We are trying to decide between the realtors, several for this size town, and we have 2 different thoughts: (1) List with the agency that has the most listings on our side of town or (2) List with the agency that has more listing similar to our house. I see positives and negatives for both choices. Any thoughts would be appreciated as we hope to list by June 1. Thank you.
You are listing with an agent (a person).
Yes, they work for an agency, but that is not that important.
Find a person who:
knows what they are doing
makes you feel comfortable
What ^^^he^^^ said.....but also, we usually have our "areas" that we do the majority of our business in and know the most about. If you see one agent more often in your area, it might be because she/he is more familiar with it.
I would go by area if that was my two criteria, not type of house.
I sold my house 2 years ago in a town about the same size as yours (25k). I chose a realtor who I knew and was very comfortable with and she not only had a lot of listings on my side of town, she also lived in that area herself. Even though she was my "friend", I would not have chosen her if I didn't know her to be a solid, hard-working, knowledgable agent.
BUT....the agency she worked for (happened to be Weichert in this case) happened to be the largest & strongest in town, and the broker for her office knew everybody and had a lot of connections and got a lot of relo clients when people moved to town because of that. The agency does make a difference, I think, when it comes to advertising.
There is something to be said about selling similar priced homes. If 1 agent sells many homes for $200K and the other sells fewer homes at $600K, you might have better odds with the one that sold at your price range.
List with the agent who has SOLD the most homes in your neighborhood, not the one with the most "listings."
Get the DETAILS on which house sold MOST QUICKLY and FOR THE GREATEST PERCENTAGE OF (or over) LIST -- if somebody specializes is "listing high and slashing" or "taking lots of listings and then waiting until eventually somebody gets tired of waiting and takes a lowball offer" your DO NOT WANT to have them list your property! That is money out of your pocket and TIME that no one should waste!
The most honest hardworking listing agents will give you a competitive market analysis of what your home is likely to sell for, what is the average time on market for such homes in your area, suggestion on how to IMPROVE on both, the statistics that should show HOW THEY BEAT the averages AND a high degree of integrity in not saying anything negative about others....
List with the agent who has SOLD the most homes in your neighborhood, not the one with the most "listings."
I don't know how to access that information here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by middle-aged mom
Agency does not matter, so long as the agency and agent are local. Your home will be advertised in the MLS to every agent.
The job description of a listing agent includes educating you, marketing the property and negotiation.
Which agent will do a better job based on these criteria?
And which agent would become the mystery. In the last city we sold a home in, we learned that some got listings, put up signs and let others sell the properties, more or less. The issue there was that the other realtors seemed to maybe not care for this and were more likely to just show and push properties where other agents were helping to get property sold (everyone helping to get the job done) and I am not saying that this is wrong but that was a mistake we made. I actually looked up addresses on some of the realtors because I thought it would be a benefit if the person lived on this side of town but none did although I see the same new name just popping up on signs going up so maybe that name is worth checking.
When we bought 1 1/2 years ago, we went FSBO after trying to work with a couple of the realtors.
Thanks everyone!
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Huh?
