Criteria for Choosing Real Estate Agent When Selling House (RE market, disclosure, appraisal)

[Jupie]

My husband and I are retiring and moving from the Boston area to the southern part of the country. What is the criteria in choosing a realtor to sell your house? Someone looking out for your best interest and not just their commission.

[MikeJaquish]

1. How long have you been licensed and working full-time?
Are you full-time, or do you have a primary day job?
Are you a salesperson, provisional broker (that is an NC thing), or broker?
Generally, a full-time experienced agent is the only logical choice. You are getting into this to sell your house, not to support a newbie in their dream.

2. How many sales have you closed, representing buyers? Representing sellers?
Anything over 20 in the last couple of years indicates reasonable current experience.
20 closings in 20 years of licensing? Walk away.....

3. What were the appraised values vs. contract price for your closed sales over the last 6 months or year?
You won't know the appraisal price for selling your house unless there is an issue or someone on the other side fumbles.
But, ask about their performance on the buy side. It reflects their skills in dealing. Appraisal value is MUCH more interesting than list price vs. sales price. The appraisal:sales price comparison considers agent performance to disinterested and professional third party opinions.

4. Will you give me a sample contract, a sample listing agency agreement, a printed or PDF CMA, a Net Proceeds guesstimate sheet, and other sample docs to study before asking me to sign anything beyond a mandated agency disclosure?
Should all be an easy "Yes," and better yet, with the possible exception of a detailed CMA, should be in their hand if you are meeting face to face after any significant prior notice.


5. Do I have to allow dual agency, designated agency, or any other form of compromise on my fiduciary representation and advocacy to work with you or your firm?
"No," is a very good answer, and particularly for a first time seller. You want full advocacy.

6. Are you my point of contact and available throughout the listing and transaction? Or, are you just involved in securing the listing, and then I am turned over to a staff and a "team?"
"A team? When will I meet the people who I will be working with?"
I.e., some agents lose sight of client service.
While many teams function well, they can also be outsourced/virtual assistants, or transient workers. Lots of turnover.
How long have your team members been with you?

7. How will we all communicate?
This is a key point.
Phone, text, fax, email, US Mail, snapchat, FB Messenger, whatever.... You all need to be on the same wavelength.
Does the agent use electronic signatures? Does the agent only use electronic signatures? Do YOU want to use electronic signatures?
And there is merit to saving all communications.

8. Can you afford to be in business?
Have you ever taken a loan advance on a commission? Pressure to pay that off is an inducement to close the sale, and could compromise the client.
Are all your dues current?
All office expenses current?
And, NO client, buyer or seller should ever hear about the agent's cost of doing business. If an agent tells you this is an expensive business to be in, thank them. Then find someone with a grip on expenses, and a bit more worldly insight into business.
Now, a good agent may tell you that your marketing dollar is better spent in one area than another, for better return on the time and dollar investment, but you should NEVER hear that "This is a really expensive business."

9. I'm serious here:
Ask the agent about their favorite listing success, and to tell you about a listing failure.
(If they've never failed, they just got their license over the weekend. "Next!")
This is a "Trust your gut" question to get them off their scripted pitch, and the agent should enjoy telling you a story or two.


Also:
You should be looking at the agents' listing histories, to see write-ups, marketing, MLS input, photos and virtual tours, because that is how YOUR property will be presented.
Separate your pride from the fact that marketing is for bring sales, not for stroking your ego.

[twingles]

As a consumer, the only thing I can add to Mike's post is to see what your potential agent acts like when they come to your interview. When we sold our last house, we had DH's best friend's father (who picked up RE as a part time hobby after he retired) over. This man was so negative about our freshly renovated from top to bottom house that I couldn't imagine him selling any house. By the end of the interview my DH practically threw him out LOL.

Next guy comes and is bowled over by the house, had an entire marketing plan which he laid out and told us exactly how he operates. We used him and had no regrets.

All this to say, you should pay careful attention to the pitch and how the agent makes you feel.

[Jkgourmet]

Mike - thanks for that list. I'll be printing it into a PDF for my hard drive.

But - how can a consumer assure that the potential agent is being honest? Seems especially to apply to item #2.

[dexter0011]

Also, do you just call local real estate people and ask them to come to your house for an interview? Will they do that?

[Taz22]

Mike's post was good although I'd add hiring a realtor in your niche market. In other words, don't hire a realtor who sells condos, if you have a suburban home, or they sell mobile homes and you have fifty acres

There is a realtor in Olympia who wants to list this house, when the time comes. Trouble is, he sells houses in the suburbs and not much farm property. He is a top producer and I like him as a person, he seems honest, but I do plan to interview others more familiar with farms. Just a thought to pass on to you.

[Brandon Hoffman]

I once lost a listing over #9. I've had plenty of listings expire, because I was licensed during the recession. Of course they were all because the seller started too high and wouldn't or couldn't reduce the price.

The seller said it was tough but went with an agent that hadn't had listings expire. It was a newer agent and I looked her up, and the agent had lied! She had actually had 3 listings expire. Count it among the things I hate about the business. No consequences for bad behavior.

[Silverfall]

Mike's list is good.

You want currently active, full-time agents representing you.

Ask for them to email you their old MLS listings that are most like your home. So if you have a $300,000 home, have them email, from the MLS, recent homes in that price point that they sold so you can see descriptions, photos, etc. You want to know what you are getting.

I know here, I can pull a whole sold spreadsheet for my listings. So you can ask them to give you a copy of their last 2-3 years, home sales report from the MLS. We have a report here called "Sold Sales Data" that has the address, original list price, list price at the time the offer comes in, sold price, days on the market, etc.

You can ask for proof of their sales.

[MikeJaquish]

Originally Posted by Jkgourmet

Mike - thanks for that list. I'll be printing it into a PDF for my hard drive.

But - how can a consumer assure that the potential agent is being honest? Seems especially to apply to item #2.

Have the agent provide a list of sales. It is easy to do.

And, ALWAYS give a salesperson the opportunity to be honest, or to lie.
Sooner or later, lies catch up to them.
It isn't unlike playing cards, where reading bluffs is a skill. Look for the tells.

[bande1102]

I'd also add:

What is your marketing plan for this house?

What do you see as the major selling point for this house? Negatives?

I'd also look at realtor.com and recently sold in your specific neighborhood. In my area, there are about 4 agents that are selling everything. There are some other agents, but they are doing nearly the volume.