Top ten questions for finding your REALTOR®
Friday, September 25th, 2009I continue to be amazed at how two real estate sales professionals can provide dramatically different services. All
Questions?
Professional Real Estate sales agents boast that they provide the best service. So how can all REALTORS® claim to provide superior service but provide dramatically different results? The thought that continues to come to mind is passion. The 80 – 20 rule applies to any service industry you research. Doctors, Sales Professionals, Medical Professionals, Plumbers, etc. It really does not matter which industry you are researching. Typically anyone can find the person that is within the upper 20% by asking intelligent and educated questions. Thankfully, finding a top 20% REALTOR® is fairly easy with the right knowledge.
Let me provide a road map to your journey to find the sales person that will educate and aid you in what could be the largest sale of your life time. Below is a list of questions to ask when researching a listing real estate sales person for the sale of your single family home, condominium or duplex. In a later post I will be sure to publish a top ten list of questions for finding an outstanding buyers real estate agent.
Here it goes…
#10) What separates your real estate services from the rest? (The answer to this question should provide very specific examples of what unique services the real estate professional provides. This general question should also provide more information about their REALTOR® services.)
#9) How specifically will other real estate professionals access your property? (This is more of an insider SECRET that most REALTORS® won’t tell you. Full time real estate professionals prefer the use of electronic lock boxes. While the cost is substantially higher than traditional manual lock boxes, an electronic lock box allows the listing agent to retrieve a log of exact times and a list of REALTORS® that have accessed the lock box. If a manual lock box is being used there is a fair chance that your real estate professional is part-time or not the real estate sales person you are
E-Lock Box
looking for! Electronic lock boxes also make for the EASIEST access to your property. Many real estate sales professionals are LAZY and they force agents to come to their office to pick up a key. Remember, 20% of the sales professionals sell 80% of the inventory and they are very busy. Sometimes due to a 30 minute round trip drive to pick up a key they may have to skip your property in the initial meeting with their buyer. They just don’t have time to run and pick up a key. An electronic lock box allows the buyers agent to show up at the home with their client, they use a special hand held device to type in their PIN and whala, two seconds later they have a key in their hand. That is a pretty big difference as compared to driving 20-30 minutes to come pick up a key. Not to mention IF the office is OPEN to get a KEY!)
#8) Will you be placing my home on the local Multiple Listing service (MLS)? (If the answer is maybe, perhaps or no, then run, run, run. Your local multiple listing service allows for other real estate sales professionals to view your home and easily present your home to buyers. MLS is what all other REALTORS® use to perform searches
Realtor MLS
for their buyers. If the sales agent does not use MLS they ARE NOT a real estate professional. It is like carpenter using a rock instead of a hammer. Seriously, that bad.)
#7) Do you as a REALTOR® have your own professional website? (A real estate professionals website is a very important tool for a REALTOR®. It is similar to an engineer without a calculator. If the sales person does not have their own website they most likely are not the real estate sales professional you are looking for. Ask more questions but this is NOT a good flag.)
#6) How do you keep recent with the latest real estate best practices and technology enhancements? Do you have any
ePRO Designation
real estate education designations? (Your potential listing agent should be able to site several conferences, trainings, as well as real estate societies or communities that they utilize to stay in tune with the latest opportunities for listing properties for sale as well as buyer information. If they cannot site examples for you, it most likely means they are not passionate about the real estate industry. One last very important note, be sure your REALTOR® is part of the National Association of REALTORS®. NAR)
#5) Does your office offer incentives for selling listings internally? How do the rest of the agents in the office learn of new listings? (The listing real estate office should have sales meetings where they review new listings. A professional sales office will assist in the sale of your property and typically your professional sales agents office will sell 1/3 – 1/2 of their own listings internally because they intimately know the properties for sale. See more below about the REALTORS® sales office.)
#4) How many sales professionals does your office have? Is the office always staffed by a real estate professional and what are your office’s hours. Are all your agents full time? (This returns to the fact that the office that your REALTOR® has joined SHOULD review your property for sale in their sales meeting. The important point to this question is instead of having one person selling your property their entire office team will be selling it. In addition, full time sales
Island Real Estate
professionals attract similar like-minded professionals and expect the same from their office. The listing agent’s office should be open 7 days per week with real estate service personnel on staff 100% of the time. This is also CRITICAL because you never know when a buyer contacts a sales professional to review houses. Buyers usuall work Monday through Saturday and only have Sunday available to review houses. A good buyers agent will learn a great deal from their first caravan of reviewing properties with the buyer. Very often expectations of a home are tweaked and during the caravan the buyers are pointing to properties with for sale signs in the front yard. “What about that one?” If your real estate office is OPEN Saturday’s and Sunday’s the sales professional will be able to contact the office for showing instructions AND if there is an electronic lock box on the property buyer caravan will STOP AND GO SLIP YOUR PROPERTY INTO THEIR SHOWINGS. IF, there is no electronic lock box and IF the office is closed on Saturday’s and Sunday’s you are missing out on a high opportunity for interested BUYERS to review your property!)
#3) How many sales transactions do you perform per year and how do you rank among your peers in the community or county. (This is the toughest of all the questions but it needs to be asked. The top 20% that you are searching for will know this information. If the person struggles to answer this question and you get this far in the line of questions there is a fair chance they are in the early stage of their career. In addition, don’t discount a mature sales professional that is winding down. Was the mature REALTOR® at the top of their game 5 years ago and now they are just starting to settle down? If the answer sounds convoluted or does not make sense you should probably move on to the next REALTOR®. Does the “newer” sales agent team up with a more experienced sales professional to overcome a lack of experience as compared to a sales professional that has successfully completed hundreds of transactions?)
Real Estate Education
#2) Where does the sales person live? Do you currently have a listing in this location or which of the REALTOR® current listings is closest to this area? (Does the sales person live and work in the area you are selling your home? This is not a critical item but if you have made it to question two and have two strong candidates to choose from then I would always suggest choosing the REALTOR® that lives and works in their farm area -farm area is where you are selling your home. They will be able to more readily sell the positives of your neighborhood first hand as well positives of the community and the services that can be found. The second piece of the question is important later on and be sure to write down the address, City AND the price of the listing the REALTOR® provides you. You will see why in a few minutes.)
#1) Ask yourself. Do I feel comfortable working with this sales person to sell my property? Do our personalities mesh? Does the sales professional listen to my expectations? (It is not necessary to be the best of friends but your conversations should be comfortable. At times you may be faced with offers that create adverse situations and an open line of communication with your listing real estate professional is critical to ensure your large fiscal transaction meets the success you deserve. Open and honest conversations are critical to your successful sale. If your conversation is strained during “small talk” you should move on to the next best sales professional that passes the questions listed above)
0) Sorry, just when you thought we were done, not yet. Now comes a very quick visit to the Internet to verify what you have heard. After the REALTOR® has left and they have accepted, “I will call in two days with my decision.” Type in the sales professional that has best passed all our questions above and type their name into Google. Their website should
Realtor Logo
readily come up at the very least and hopefully you find several more results that provide some history of how well the person will be marketing your home. Do you see any newspaper ads where the sales professional has been quoted or used as an expert in their field? Now it is time to see the strength of the REALTORS® marketing campaign. Go to www.Realtor.com and first go to your area and spend about 20 minutes looking at properties for sale and be sure to make notes of which REALTORS® you see consistently on the website. Hopefully ONE of the real estate professionals that you consistently see has several listings you have come across. Take your list of two or three and make sure you look at a couple of the listings they have. Do they have a Virtual tour or video of the property for sale? Do they have a great description of the property or just a one line description? Are there plenty of pictures on their listings so that it makes it easy for buyers to retrieve more information about the property for sale? It is a known fact that buyers perform hours of research on the Internet prior to walking through any properties. Properties with a good description, plenty of pictures, and a virtual tour are 70%+ more likely to be viewed physically by potential buyers.
If the Real Estate professional of your first choice has plenty of listings. All their listings consistently show great descriptions, plenty of pictures and virtual tours, YOU HAVE FOUND YOUR Listing Real Estate professional. If you did not cross any of the REALTOR’S’® listings then perform a more specific search with the listing you wrote down from your interview process. IF you have NOT found good descriptions ask your first choice REALTOR®, why? There may be a great reason but it is doubtful.
If your first search of a REALTOR® came up short use your list of sales professionals you wrote down while researching Realtor.com and start the process all over again. After going through the process once you will be a pro and for sure the second go around will produce the best Real Estate Sales professional for you.
I want to help!
Of course if you are looking for help to purchase or selling your property in Northwest Bradenton, LongBoat Key or Anna Maria Island, Florida, I would love the opportunity to help. If you have further questions about my services please call or visit my website. (941) 345-1288
