Choosing the Right Realtor to List Your Home

For most people, the purchase or sale of a home will be highest dollar transaction that they ever take part in. For that reason alone, choosing the right realtor to list your home with could be the most important decision of your financial life. Failure to choose the right realtor could result in missed sales opportunities or a reduced sale price of your home. This article contains some key tips to consider as you are choosing the realtor to list your home.

Choosing the Right Realtor to List Your Home

Measure the message response time

As you are attempting to choose the right realtor to list your home with, you must consider the prospective agents’ response time to voicemail. Call, leave a message, and note when you called them. Anyone who calls back within an hour or two should get bonus points while agents who take over a day to return your call should not be considered, no matter what the excuse. The bottom line is, when a potential buyer has a question on your home and may be ready to make an impulsive decision, you want to have the agent who gets right back to people. The agent who methodically returns calls once a day may miss the opportunity to sell your home.

What have they sold in your area

An agent who has sold homes on your street, in your neighborhood, down the road, etc has an advantage over other agents because he/she knows what buyers looking for a home in your area are looking for. Consider this when you are choosing the realtor to list your home. The agent who has listed and sold in your area has heard the feedback from prospective buyers, seen what advertising was effective in drawing interest, and has also seen what didn’t work. When choosing the right realtor, local experience is an important factor.

What do they have to offer

When you’re choosing your realtors, some agents will come in with a fabulous presentation on why they’re the best realtor for the job while others will come in, give a few comps, and ask for your listing. Some people prefer not to be wowed by fancy presentations, but as you choose your realtor, consider this: if an agent can’t even give a compelling sales pitch as to why you should select them, what type of sales pitch are they going to give on your house? The agent’s presentation is your one opportunity to evaluate his/her sales skills.

Agent’s commission

Choosing the right realtor to list your home is different from choosing the cheapest realtor. A listing agent’s commission will vary from 4% to 6%. One factor to consider is that the agent with a 4% commission is probably not paying out a high fee to buyer’s agents and is also not going to spend much on advertising. You can try to get agents to lower their commission percentage, but remember that if an agent with a higher commission is willing to negotiate his commission down to get the listing, he will probably be eager to lower the price of your home to make the sale. In the end, no one likes to pay an extra two percent, but if 2% in commission results in 5% on the sale price, you actually net 3% more. Basically, when choosing the realtor to list your home, decide based upon the other factors and don’t let the commission sway you too much.

How is the agent paid

In choosing the right realtor, you need to know how they get paid. Some agents pay dues to a broker, pay for advertising and keep their entire commission, while others have their advertising paid for but only keep a percentage of their commission. While you would think that the agent keeping the entire commission would be more aggressive, they are often more hesitant to spend money. They are often the agents who want to wait and see how one tactic works before employing another. When you choose your realtor, you’re better off to choose an agent who is spending someone else’s money instead of someone who is spending their own.

Let agents critique your home

The agent who says that everything about your home is great, is not the right realtor for the job. An agent who comes through and gives some constructive criticism should be strongly considered in your efforts to choose the right realtor. The agent who is willing to risk offending you and losing your listing in order to help you sell your home will put forth the effort it takes to get to the closing table.

Stipulate Performance

In your listing agreement, you have the right to stipulate performance such as open houses every forty-five days, in the paper every other Sunday, return calls within twenty-four hours, etc. As you look to choose the right realtor, ask prospective agents how they feel about this. If they’re going to perform, they’ll be willing to put it in writing. After all, they’re asking you to put it in writing that you’ll commit to them. The least they can do is reciprocate.

Don’t consider friendship

In choosing the right realtor, remember that friends are great when things are going well, but they’re difficult to be honest with when things aren’t. Friendship will also sway you into overlooking some of the key factors to choosing the right realtor as mentioned in this article. Basically, it’s best to keep business and friendship separate unless you honestly feel that without a doubt, your friend is the best realtor for the job.

Choosing the right realtor to list your home is a difficult process. Agents will feed you more information than you want, but not everything you need. As you work to choose the right realtor, keep your focus on the basics for what you expect from a realtor, the basics that are outlined in this article, and you can be confident that you’ve chosen the right real estate agent for the job.

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