When you’re looking for a real estate agent to help you sell your home on the market there are certain things you’ll need to ask of any candidate to make sure they’re the right person for the job. Today we’ll cover four key questions to ask an agent before you hire them to take on your home sale:
1. “How many transactions have you completed in the last year?” This will help you identify if they’re a part-time or a full-time agent. There are still several part-time agents in the real estate industry, but you want to hire a full-time agent who has helped between 15 and 50 families sell their homes in the last year. If you’re hiring an agent who is a part of a group (like our team), that number should be a lot higher.
2. “What is your average days on market?” When an agent can price a property correctly, including educating you on what price to give it, doing so will enable a quicker home sale that leads to it sitting on the market for a shorter period. If the agent prices it too high, the home will spend more time on the market. Asking this question will give you insight into how transparent and honest they are in their pricing consultation.
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You want to hire a full-time agent.
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3. “What is your list-to-sales-price ratio?” This is another way of asking the agent how much, on average, they actually sell their homes for in comparison to what those homes were listed for. This number will tell you how strong and fierce of a negotiator that agent is. For example, our list-to-sales-price ratio is 98.7%—on average, we get our clients 98.7% of their listing price when we sell their homes. We’re very proud of that number.
4. “What do reviews say about you?” When you ask this question, you’re trusting the agent to know their numbers and to be transparent about them; you can always go to third-party websites like Zillow and Realtor.com to check what others have said about their experience with the agent you’re interviewing. On those platforms, you can just enter your ZIP code or city and find profiles and reviews of agents in your area. What’s more, you can sort those profiles by who has the most positive reviews, the most listing, and/or the most sales in your area.
By asking these four questions of any agent you interview, you’ll set yourself up for success when you hire the best possible representation for your listing.
If you have any questions or would like to interview our team for the job of selling your home, feel free to reach out to us. We’d love to help you with and guide you toward meeting your real estate goals.
